This post originally appeared at https://www.badgerinstitute.org/justice-has-gotten-swifter-in-wisconsin-observers-see-room-for-more-improvement/

Two years after the Badger Institute and others rang alarm bells about delays in criminal justice because of staffing problems among Wisconsin’s prosecutors and public defenders, and one year after the Legislature acted on those alarms, the early signs point toward swifter justice.

The median time it takes to close out felony criminal cases is down 5% from 2022 to 2023, and the median misdemeanor criminal case is reaching a conclusion 2% faster, according to figures from the Wisconsin Court System.

This has helped with the number of backlogged criminal cases, which are down 7% below their pandemic peak — but are still 25% higher than their pre-pandemic level and 65% higher than in 2010.

The results come after the Legislature passed a budget in the summer of 2023 that provided significant starting pay raises for assistant district attorneys and assistant public defenders and more flexibility for merit-based pay raises going forward.

Badger Institute research documented the gap between pay in starting positions as prosecutors or public defenders Wisconsin and the pay offered for similarly qualified individuals in other states or in other legal career paths. The State Public Defender’s Office, the Wisconsin District Attorneys Association and the Director of State Courts Office also pressed lawmakers on the issue, arguing that difficulties in attracting and retaining staff contributed to delays.

Those delays were severe and growing. As the Badger Institute noted in late 2022, it took more than a year for a court to resolve an armed robbery charge, 14 months to resolve a sexual assault case, and more than 15 months to resolve an allegation that someone committed a murder — delays that harmed public safety.

It is too early to be able to empirically prove that Wisconsin’s pay raises have affected case backlogs in the court system or the average time it takes to resolve a case, but this initial data appears promising. The core question is whether Wisconsin’s court system will return to its pre-pandemic trend of incremental increases in delays or if it will continue moving toward swifter justice.

The Legislature’s response made the salaries for prosecutors and public defenders more competitive compared to the salaries paid to other public and private sector legal roles: a 32% increase in starting wages — $56,659 a year before the raises, and $74,880 after — and a more than 13% increase for those already employed, with small additional increases going into effect this year. It was clear when the bipartisan Joint Finance Committee approved the pay increases in May of 2023 that they would happen, and the first higher paychecks were issued in October of 2023.

Wisconsin now sits near the top of the states we previously studied for similar roles, but many of them have also implemented substantial salary increases in recent years. For example, public defenders in Minnesota and Virginia received starting salary bumps of 26% and 32% respectively.

The entire market has seen increases in compensation over the past few years that undermine the increased competitiveness that was sought by these changes. Private sector attorneys have seen their average pay increase by 11% over the past two years. Other public sector roles also continue to pay more than these forms of public service, with attorneys working for the University of Wisconsin system still making $10,000 more in their first year.

Impact on retention and recruitment of attorneys

The salary increases also appeared to have improved the retention and recruitment of attorneys somewhat with the State Public Defender, Wisconsin District Attorneys Association, and Department of Administration all initially reporting decreased vacancies among assistant public defender and assistant district attorney roles.

But there are still too few attorneys in these roles for the justice system to catch up, say those who oversee the system. Mindy Tempelis of the Wisconsin District Attorneys Association recently stated that there is still a “shortage of attorneys on both sides of the courtroom,” noting that this shortage is causing a “constitutional level problem … such as people remaining in custody longer than they should or waiting for a defense attorney to be appointed.” Adam Plotkin of the Wisconsin State Public Defender office agreed, citing the risk that delays pose to the availability of evidence. Remaining backlogs, he said, are a “risk to public safety long term.”

Justice still delayed

The Legislature’s reforms notwithstanding, criminal justice cannot be considered swift in Wisconsin by any stretch of the imagination. It still takes nearly nine months to resolve the average felony case and almost eighteen months to resolve a first-degree murder case. The Badger Institute made other recommendations in the “Mandate for Madison” chapter, such as increased data transparency and accountability for the state’s court system — measures to permit a fuller diagnosis of the causes of backlogs.

Some say there is more the Legislature can do when looking specifically at the compensation for prosecutors and public defenders in the state. Kent Lovern, who ran unopposed this year for Milwaukee County’s district attorney, said that even though “there is no question about it that we would have lost more people without the pay increases,” the county’s prosecutor office is still “losing people to other public sector roles” because the state is “still uncompetitive” when it comes to compensation. He noted that the office has lost 18 prosecutors in the past year and that the six lost to either the U.S. Attorney’s Office or the Wisconsin Department of Justice “were outstanding prosecutors with 10-plus years of experience.”

The Wisconsin Supreme Court appears to agree with him as it recently launched a new committee to figure out how to address the state’s attorney shortage — which is most acutely felt in the state’s public defense and prosecutor offices.

Jeremiah Mosteller is an attorney and criminal justice policy expert who serves as a policy director at Americans for Prosperity and a visiting fellow at the Badger Institute.

Any use or reproduction of Badger Institute articles or photographs requires prior written permission. To request permission to post articles on a website or print copies for distribution, contact Badger Institute President Mike Nichols at mike@badgerinstitute.org or 262-389-8239.

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