Outgoing DA offers parting comments

By Kevin O’Brien

Outgoing district attorney Theresa Wetzsteon last week touted her office’s accomplishments during her eight-year tenure and also made closing arguments for future reforms in areas such as restitution for victims, missed court appearances and drug and alcohol treatment courts.

“I really do think we can do better as a system, but we all have to hold each other accountable,” she told members of the Public Safety Committee during their Dec. 10 meeting. “We all have to be heard at the table.”

Wetzsteon said she’s taken some flack for pointing out what she sees as problems with various aspects of the county’s circuit court system, but she feels she’s just doing her job as the county’s top prosecutor. She said she’s been told to stop “telling other people how to do their job,” but she finds that comment to be “dismissive.”

Though Wetzsteon has frequently criticized and questioned the county’s drug and alcohol treatment courts, she said she always starts by having conversations with people directly involved in the programs before bringing her concerns to county supervisors.

“I want to let you know that I did a lot of homework on these programs. I had a lot of conversations on these programs,” she said. “There was a lot of background work before I ever came before this committee with a presentation.”

First elected in 2016, Wetzsteon decided not to run for a third term in this year’s election. Assistant DA Kyle Mayo, who ran unopposed to replace her and will take over the office in January, has been working with Wetzsteon to make the transition as smooth as possible, she said.

When considering decisions in her office and evaluating initiatives in the court system, Wetzsteon said she has always applied four tenents: public safety, accountability, victims rights and efficient resource allocation.

“If I see an issue that is not consistent with those four tenents, I am going to speak up,” she said.

One area that she hopes will be changed in the future involves restitution for the victims of crime. Right now, if an offender fails to pay full restitution during their time on probation, she said the victim must take it upon themselves to pursue damages in civil court. She said that can be especially difficult for

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victims who don’t want to disclose information about themselves and want to avoid contact with the offender.

The clerk of courts office always makes sure that all of the court costs and forfeitures are collected, but the victims don’t have the same leverage, she noted.

“It needs to be changed,” she said, suggesting that it may take additional staffing in the future to collect restitution.

Another area that needs more accountability, according to Wetzsteon, is the county’s treatment courts. As she has noted before, county prosecutors are no longer participating in drug court due to concerns about who is admitted, and the treatment court for drunk drivers is down to just two participants because of a change in state law. She she said she’s been trying unsuccessfully for four years to get the program reconfigured so money is not being wasted.

“I kept asking the questions, and eventually, I got mad about it, and at least now people are talking about it,” she said.

Wetzsteon also expressed concerns about defendants who don’t show up for court even after they’ve requested a hearing to quash a warrant. She said it costs the county a lot of time and money to gather together a judge, prosecutor, court reporter, witness coordinator and defense attorney, so there should be some kind of repercussion for those who miss their hearings.

“It really is a big deal when people don’t show up for court, and somewhere along the line, we have accepted as a county that people can just not show up to court,” she said. “If I don’t show up to my doctor’s office for my appointment, there’s some accountability. I might be charged for not showing up. We don’t even expect that anymore.”

Before going over these lingering frustrations, Wetzsteon went year by year through her time in office to highlight some of the innovations and improvements she and her staff made.

At the time she was elected in 2016, she said her office did not have enough prosecutors to handle the county’s caseload, and the county was having to pay for 2.5 full-time positions. Now, with the help of money from the American Rescue Plan Act, she said the office is fully staffed and there hasn’t been any turnover in two years.

“In 2024, we have 13 state-funded prosecutors,” she said. “That is wonderful.”

The DA’s office has also embraced multiple technological advances during Wetzsteon’s tenure, starting with going paperless in 2017. After converting most of its files to digital, the officer hired an IT specialist in 2018 who now goes through 15,000 digital files per month. She said the amount of data processed on a monthly basis, including dash cam video footage, is 1.5 terabytes – the equivalent of 900 high-quality movies.

Then, just before COVID-19 hit in 2020, Wetzsteon said her office became one of the first in the state to start electronically transmitting discovery materials to defense attorneys, allowing work to be done remotely and preventing delays.

Wetzsteon said her office added a diversion specialist in 2019, allowing low-risk offenders to stay out of the system, which saves the county money and has resulted in $1 million in restitution being collected for victims. In 2023, the county’s deflection program for highrisk offenders was moved from the sheriff’s department to the DA’s office.

“The deflection program has really been a breath of fresh air, where we feel like we’re really making a meaningful impact on the population of drug-addicted individuals,” she said.

Under Wetzsteon, the DA’s office also hired a part-time police officer to testify at preliminary hearings, removing the need for officers from the county’s multiple police departments from having to take time off from their duties to be in court.

Other staff changes have been more difficult, she said, including the elimination of a receptionist position in order to add a much-needed victim witness specialist and the replacement of a legal secretary with a paralegal. Because her staff was on board with these restructuring plans, Wetzsteon said no one quit during the transition.

“It has been very successful,” she said.

Once she steps down from the DA’s position, Wetzsteon said she will return to work as a county prosecutor, working under Mayo and avoiding any involvement in county politics.

“I will be as quiet as a mouse,” she promised the committee.