March 2 Speaker: Carol O'Brien, Delaware County Prosecutor
Posted by Michael Blackwell
on Mar 10, 2012
"Prosecutors must always live by the first of Rotary's Four Principles," noted Carol, "in that we must always tell the truth. Thus, we are handicapped against defense attorneys. Their job is to get people free. Often they don't want to know the truth. Mine is to do justice, and the truth is an absolute. I don't want to talk about specific cases today. I learned that lesson from my son. One evening as we sat at family dinner and I was relating the details of the murder case I was prosecuting, he picked up his hamburger and said '57 stab wounds? Really! Mom, can we PLEASE not talk about this at dinner.' I would like to talk about what we do in the prosecutor's office since most of you probably don't know about it."
We have a victim-centered office. In everything we do, we aim to get justice for victims. Often these days, that means working with drug users. Despite what you might have heard, drugs are not a victimless crime. Thefts from business, break-ins, and most robberies are typically caused by people who need a fix. They don't care about the stuff they take or the people they hurt. They don't care about the computer that has all your business records or the wide-screen television that you saved up for. They just need drugs.
We work closely to address this problem. My advice to help with it is that we need a dual approach - mercy and a hammer. We need early education and instruction to help prevent children from getting involved. First or second time offenders get remanded to a treatment program. They have two years of treatment to prove they can get straight. I love to sign release orders because it means we've saved someone. At the same time, I have no problem putting someone away. We need to be strong to protect society from people who have been given chance after chance and who still commit drug-related crimes."
"While most crime is drug-related, sometimes we see simple greed. Often it involves people stealing from their relations, and most often from elderly relatives. It is disillusioning to be a prosecutor. You lose a tremendous amount of trust in your fellow human beings because you see the worst that people can do to each other. That desire for justice is what keeps you going, but you must always temper that desire for justice with a total respect for the truth."
"Ours is definitely not a 40 hour a week job. Our prosecutors work evenings and weekends. Criminals are often very inconsiderate, and commit their crimes at the most inconvenient times. We are on call 24 hours a day. It never stops. We usually work with a backlog of at least 125 cases. We have a Criminal Division, with four prosecutors. They handle everything from the lowest level felony of drug possession up to murder.
We have a Civil section, with three prosecutors. They represent county officials any time the officials get sued. They handle foreclosures. Fortunately, those are down in 2011 after hitting a record in 2010. Mostly foreclosures are related to job loss these days, unlike before, when too many people were in over their heads with properties they could never have afforded. Once they are out from under their mortgages, they typically are much happier and are financially okay. These prosecutors have to deal with a lot of paperwork and emails. It's a big job."
"As busy as we are and as stressed as we can be, we have a great staff. We have great working relations with local law enforcement agencies, and we can't do our job without them. Our prosecutors all give their time and their passion to create justice. I've been a prosecutor for 29 years now, and I want to go on. I love it. If we often see the worst in people, we also get to see creating justice is the foundation of a great society, allowing people to live together and lie with a trust that ours is a land of peace and opportunity."