I worked for the Public Defender during an election year. The local D.A. was trying to divert attention from a sex scandal and instructed the ADAs not to negotiate down on any crimes so that he could "look tough" on crime. The thinking was that most criminal defendants would cave and he would get a boost with the mostly-conservative voters of the county.
So the lawyers of the Public Defender (and a good portion of the private criminal defense bar) banded together and convinced about a quarter of our clients to go to trial (up from 1 in every 100 or so). I worked in a specialty division (mentally "disordered" defendants) where we got to make the decisions for our clients, and we took almost every case to trial.
We also made sure that every defendant going to trial refused to waive his right to a speedy trial, meaning that cases had to go to trial within about 2-3 months or they would get thrown out.
The consequences?
(1) To avoid speedy-trial issues, the D.A.'s office had to transfer cases out to the boonies of our county whereever there were available courtrooms for trials, and ADA's unfamiliar with these cases would take them to trial. They either lost these cases at trial or watched them get thrown out when they could not start on time (frequently, because their expert witnesses could not schedule court appearances on such short notice).
(2) A backlog of criminal and MD cases that jammed up the court docket, pushing back other cases (i.e., civil lawsuits) 5 years or more. 2009 to 2010 was not a good time to file a lawsuit in that county.
(3) An enraged judiciary that began throwing out criminal cases with wild abandon, including almost all drug possession cases, nonviolent misdemeanors, and lower-level non-violent felonies.
(4) The D.A. lost his reelection campaign, by double-digits.
The nuclear option worked, and the next D.A. rescinded the non-negotiation order.
EDIT: I should point out that this worked because massive budget reductions to the court system during this time period artificially reduced the number of courts in the county. Without those budget reductions, we would have needed many more trial-ready cases to nuke the system.
I should point out that this worked because massive budget reductions to the court system during this time period artificially reduced the number of courts in the county.
A judicial system that depends on plea bargains to achieve a merely basic Constitutional level of service has already had its budget cut to the bone.
I would like to point out that it's horrifying to know that a DA would try to mess with the system just to look good. I know it happens but it should not and points to a broken system of how people are motivated (e.g. look tough fighting crime by issuing ridiculous edict in order to win re-election campaign).
Why won't you share his name? The D.A. was a public servant. Not only should his actions taken under the color of his role be public knowledge, but he should be held responsible for them by the public as well. It'd be like saying "I used to work for a President who made Executive Order X", and then being evasive when someone asks who the President was.
There are a lot more possibilities than just those six. It could be almost anywhere, really. For example, how about somewhere in Florida? There have been lots of foreclosures there, and it has a large conservative population.
Also, the poster said "conservative" but didn't explicitly say "Republican", so you can't necessarily rule out counties with Democratic DAs. The poster also didn't give a timeframe. It could have been well before the housing bust for all we know. They were obviously being intentionally vague.
Shouldn't be too hard to find, he gave a lot of unique information. We know that this was in the 2009-2011 timeframe, as this "was a bad time to file a lawsuit in that county".
Here's a checklist of things that shouldn't be too hard to establish with some Google-fu:
* Election results for "double-digit" losses by incumbent DAs.
* Areas with a special division for "mentally disordered" clients (Is this a common term found everywhere? Dunno).
* A (state?, unlikely, but I don't know of many county-level legislatures; they are generally governed by a mayor or council) legislature that started specifically evacuating drug possession cases from the docket (would this count as a "legislative pardon" or were the cases just reset?) as a response to 5+ year lag on civil suits.
* "heavily conservative", which your list here seems to contemplate.
* a sex-scandal embroiled DA, with reports probably emerging in the 2008-2009 timeframe.
And there were other significant details in there too, but I think the sex scandal thing will be one of the best filters. Probably all you need is DAs-in-sex-scandals + election results from 2009-2011 to pinpoint the county. OP was not being sneaky or anonymous at all, anyone who cares can find out relatively easily.
So the lawyers of the Public Defender (and a good portion of the private criminal defense bar) banded together and convinced about a quarter of our clients to go to trial (up from 1 in every 100 or so). I worked in a specialty division (mentally "disordered" defendants) where we got to make the decisions for our clients, and we took almost every case to trial.
We also made sure that every defendant going to trial refused to waive his right to a speedy trial, meaning that cases had to go to trial within about 2-3 months or they would get thrown out.
The consequences? (1) To avoid speedy-trial issues, the D.A.'s office had to transfer cases out to the boonies of our county whereever there were available courtrooms for trials, and ADA's unfamiliar with these cases would take them to trial. They either lost these cases at trial or watched them get thrown out when they could not start on time (frequently, because their expert witnesses could not schedule court appearances on such short notice). (2) A backlog of criminal and MD cases that jammed up the court docket, pushing back other cases (i.e., civil lawsuits) 5 years or more. 2009 to 2010 was not a good time to file a lawsuit in that county. (3) An enraged judiciary that began throwing out criminal cases with wild abandon, including almost all drug possession cases, nonviolent misdemeanors, and lower-level non-violent felonies. (4) The D.A. lost his reelection campaign, by double-digits.
The nuclear option worked, and the next D.A. rescinded the non-negotiation order.
EDIT: I should point out that this worked because massive budget reductions to the court system during this time period artificially reduced the number of courts in the county. Without those budget reductions, we would have needed many more trial-ready cases to nuke the system.