National Association of Prosecutor Coordinators

By Thomas Robertson, President, National Association of Prosecutor Coordinators Exceutive Secretary, Michigan Prosecuting Attorneys Coordinators Council

As you read this article, the November elections will be over. Governors’ offices will have changed hands, and legislatures and Congress may have switched party control. What is certain, however, is that your prosecutor coordinator will be ready for the 2007 legislative session.

Whether you have a short intense legislative session, or like Michigan, you are “blessed” with the more leisurely pace of a year-round legislature, coordinators around the country will be prepared for remarkably similar sessions.

Many of us will be facing legislatures that have completely turned over in the last eight years thanks to term limits. We will all be facing common issues from prison overcrowding to determining the fate of violent but misguided juveniles whose brains are still developing. That’s where the National Association of Prosecutor Coordinators (NAPC) serves a tremendous role in helping state prosecutor associations gain legislative success. For example, when the manufacture of meth became the backwoods occupation of choice, we all learned from Oklahoma and Iowa and copied their statutes not only at the state level but also at the national level. And the results have been amazing. While meth addiction is still a huge problem, the toxic pollution of our environmental heritage has been greatly reduced.

As legislatures strived to draft fair post-conviction DNA statutes, the NAPC network went to work comparing drafts and ideas. Other recent examples include the drafting of Atkins statutes to ensure that the mentally retarded are not executed, enacting laws that test sex offenders for HIV to ease at least one of a victim’s many worries, and making sure that the “Jessica laws” passed last year would be effective and not counterproductive.

Gazing into my crystal ball, 2007 is likely to see the continued spread of “Stand Your Ground” legislation; the attack on prosecuting juveniles as adults will continue; advocates for indigent defense services will continue to claim a funding priority over resources for prosecution; and we will continue to search for legislative solutions to improve the prosecution of child abusers and those who commit domestic violence, in spite of the limitations of Crawford. And of course, those of you with a death penalty statute are always prepared for the next attack.

One thing you can count on, whatever the issue, your coordinator has a national network of resources to call on to make sure your state laws are the best they can be.