MCAO continuing to pare down backlog of cases, including DUI, officer-involved shootings

PHOENIX– The Maricopa County Attorney’s Office is continuing to cut into the hundreds of backlogged cases it inherited from past administrations.

Interim County Attorney Rachel Mitchell said Wednesday during a press conference she has made it a priority to get through the backlogs and is pleased with the progress.

“There were different types of backlogs and one of them was a backlog of about …. 800 felony DUI cases that had been reviewed and charged but had not been fed into the system…we’ve now reduced it to just a little over 200,” Mitchell said.

Mitchell added when it comes to unreviewed DUI cases — a significant portion of the backlog — her office assigned a senior attorney to review the cases.

Another backlog the office needed to reduce was officer-involved shootings.

“When I took over the average clearance rate for our office was about three per month,” Mitchell said. “We have more than doubled that, so we are reviewing seven a month.”

Since she entered office, Mitchell has stressed the need to be careful when working on the backlogs to not flood the system.

That’s why her office worked with Clerk of the Superior Court Jeff Fine to make sure the courts system could handle the large number of cases.

Mitchell added she’s also been working to get employee numbers up, which will contribute to reducing the backlogs.

She said the recruitment program her office launched has been very successful saying the number of applicants per week have doubled across all positions in the office.

“When we started, we were 20% down. Just yesterday… we did a new employee orientation that included a number of prosecutors of 27 new employees,” Mitchell said.

Follow @OatleyTasler