Cool Cleveland Interviews Cuyahoga County Prosecutor Candidates
As a service to the community, Cool Cleveland has invited all five Cuyahoga County Prosecutor candidates to respond to a series of questions prior to the primary election on Tuesday, March 6, 2012. Because no Republican candidates are running, the Democratic candidate with the most votes in the Democratic Primary onTue 3/6 will become the next County Prosecutor. Responses to these questions will be reprinted verbatim, up to the requested limit of 350 words total.
QUESTION 1: (two parts)
On a scale of one to ten, please rate the current prosecutor’s office.
Robert Triozzi response: 5. There are a good number of highly qualified assitant proscutors in the office and the office should be credited with advances in the use of technology and the establishment of its economic crimes unit. However, there is a great need for significant changes both in organization and in impact.
Then, in 350 words, please tell our readers what you would do differently.
I will implement a vertical prosecution model where individual prosecutors take ownership of a case from its early stages all the way through charging, bond and probable cause hearing, grand jury, pretrial and trial. This will increase support to law enforcement officers and victims and will allow assistant prosecutors a much greater voice in case resolution through trial or plea negotiation.
The office will be organized around various specialized units: public corruption, sex crimes, elder victims, child victims and assistant prosecutors will be provided the support and on-going training necessary to develop areas of particular expertise. I will establish a supervisory team that possesses not only substantive expertise, but also have the necessary leadership skills to support and develop talent within the office. Diversity will be embraced throughout the organization.
There will be a primary focus on juvenile justice by broadly expanding the community based prosecution model to identify and isolate the activities of chronic juvenile offenders. I will also expand mediation and diversion opportunities consistently throughout the county, and expand crime prevention initiatives that counter prevailing attitudes toward truancy and predatory and anti-social behavior.
I will create an intelligence-driven prosecution/crime strategies unit that specifically targets priority offenders to impact charging decisions, bail application, plea decisions and sentencing recommendations. The focus would be to address the offender’s impact on criminal activity across jurisdictional boundaries regardless of the level of offenses and would utilize data based on the offenders affiliations, type of crime, access to weapons, and targets of crime.
I will utilize a regular county-stat review process to monitor consistency and outcomes. Conviction rates will not be the defining measure of success. Rather, in every process, policy, and decision we will measure its effectiveness at reducing… (350 word limit)
http://triozziforprosecutor.com