Counties move to bolster prosecutor funding, security

County supervisors in Sacramento and Fresno moved this week to address two problems confronting prosecutors across California: tight budgets and concerns about personal safety.

On Tuesday, the Sacramento County Board of Supervisors redirected nearly $3 million to District Attorney Thien Ho's office to support 10 positions, further reversing cuts that Ho warned earlier this year could devastate the office and potentially eliminate its misdemeanor prosecution unit.

In March, Ho told county officials that proposed reductions of nearly $8.3 million and 15 positions would "devastate" the office. Supervisors restored about $4.4 million in June, cutting the planned reduction by more than half, but the budget still eliminated 15 positions.

Ho expressed his "sincere gratitude" to supervisors in an email Thursday, saying the additional money will allow his office to "ensure public safety."

Also Tuesday, Fresno County supervisors advanced an ordinance allowing prosecutors and investigators with concealed-carry permits to carry firearms on county property. The move follows the stabbing last month of a deputy district attorney near the downtown Fresno courthouse. A suspect with a lengthy criminal record in the county was quickly arrested and remains in custody.

Supervisors voted 5-0 to approve the ordinance on its first reading. A second hearing is scheduled for Sept. 22. If approved, the changes would take effect 30 days later.

"I've been in and around the prosecution space for more than four decades, and it is much more dangerous than it used to be," California District Attorneys Association CEO Greg Totten said Thursday. "For whatever reason, people are willing to do harm to prosecutors, which has not historically been that common."

Totten acknowledged that he was unaware of any formal data showing an increase in violence against prosecutors and described the evidence as "anecdotal." The National District Attorneys Association maintains a memorial at the University of South Carolina honoring prosecutors killed in the line of duty, but no new names have been added in more than a decade.

There have, however, been recent threats against prosecutors. In February, a federal judge in Fresno sentenced an inmate to an additional 10 years in prison for threatening to kill the "whole family" of an assistant U.S. attorney who prosecuted him. Defendants in Georgia, Massachusetts, Texas and Washington have also been charged with threatening prosecutors in the past three years.

Policies allowing armed prosecutors are not unprecedented in California. Santa Clara and Sonoma counties have allowed prosecutors to carry firearms for about a decade.

In 1997, then-Attorney General Dan Lungren issued an opinion concluding that judges could not prohibit licensed deputy district attorneys from carrying firearms if they complied with restrictions, including not carrying them on floors containing courtrooms.

Funding problems are more widespread, Totten said, with financial pressures and difficulties recruiting and retaining attorneys affecting district attorneys' offices from smaller counties such as Kings and Tulare to Los Angeles and Sacramento.

Over the past year, supervisors in Shasta and Sutter counties have increased prosecutor pay and offered incentives including retention bonuses and additional leave. Both offices were facing vacancy rates of roughly 50%.

Los Angeles County District Attorney Nathan Hochman told supervisors last year that his office had fallen from about 950 prosecutors in 2020 to roughly 750 by late 2024. Prosecutors there have also raised concerns about threats, intimidation and online harassment directed at employees.

Those pressures have persisted even as California's prison population and overall crime rates have declined in recent years. Totten said fewer new defendants do not necessarily translate into lighter workloads, pointing to changes in state law that have created additional hearings and resentencing proceedings.

"Over the last decade, the legislature has approved huge volume of so-called criminal justice reform that have markedly reduced sentences, but they've also concurrently created a huge volume of procedural responsibilities and burdens on district attorneys that have to repeatedly litigate these re-hearings and sentencing challenges," Totten said.