In his annual report to the Barton County Commission Wednesday morning, County Attorney  Levi Morris ran through the case numbers for the past year, extolled the virtues of the office’s new computer system and lamented that after several weeks, he has yet to receive an application for an open prosecutor’s post.

“I wanted to provide basically the case numbers that were filed as I tried to do every year,” he said. 

• “Last year, we prosecuted 1,016 traffic cases, which is kind of our new low,” he said.

He’s seen this as high as 1,900. “I’ve come in every year and said we’re filing fewer traffic cases. That has almost nothing to do with us and everything to do with law enforcement. I’m not complaining, I’m not blaming anybody. I’m just saying it’s a function of people on the streets.”

He doesn’t mind since this allows his traffic attorneys to handle other cases. 

• They filed 75 juvenile offender cases which is up from 50 last year, a number that has held steady recently.

 “It’s a 50% increase,” he said. “It could be simply that kids committed a few more crimes, people complained a little bit more and maybe we caught up on charging juveniles.”

• They filed 45 care and treatments, which is about the same as last year. These are cases in which a person is suffering from a mental health crisis and, in most cases, goes to Larned State Hospital or the state facility at Osawatomie.

• They filed approximately 468 adult criminal cases. “That is a little low. It was 580 before I arrived, and it’s been 476 492 and 473 in the past three years. 

This is likely because they were short handed for four months

Other announcements

He mentioned that in the first week of January they “went live” with their new case management system, Prosecutor by Karpel Solutions.  Karpel Solutions is a big company based in St. Louis that does case management for prosecutors, defense and law enforcement with thousands of clients.

“ We really like the product, it’s phenomenal,” he said. “But with all new things, we’re still learning how to use it and working out the bugs that come with a new system.” 

This replaced a system used since 2004. That company lost its contract with the State of Kansas and stopped supporting users.

“They’ve (Karpel) got 660 clients and 17,000 users in 32 states,” he said. Out of 105 Kansas counties, 45 county prosecutors use the product.

The company is responsive and easy to work with, he said. They are getting ready to release an upgrade.

“So I’m really excited about really excited about the product,” he said. “We’ve been live for three to four weeks and we’re still getting used to it. It’s a very elaborate system with a lot of possibility and potential.”

And, prosecutor Colin Reynolds left at the end of last year after being appointed by his local political party and Kansas Gov. Laura Kelly as the new Miami County Attorney.  This left a job opening in Morris’ department.

“It has been posted for a month,” he said. “I have zero applications.”

District 2 Commissioner Barb Esfeld asked about implementing a drug court in Barton County.

These are used in several counties, including Ellis and Reno, Morris said. 

“They are empowered, or authorized by statute. But the State of Kansas doesn’t pay for it to make it happen,” he said. There is a lot of grant money available, however.

Basically, a drug court requires a judge and prosecutor to volunteer their time, he said. So it’s an increase in work and there has to be buy-in from those involved.

“But it is a different environment and everyone that has it that I’ve spoken to will tell you it is worth it,” he said. “It does have a positive effect in the community. It does have a positive effect on recidivism.”

The threat of jail has only so much of an effect on a drug offender, he said. People may respond better to different treatments or different modes of correction rather than the traditional jail-and-probation model.

“They just need more exposure to the courts, more exposure to a judge and a more intensive program,” Morris said. “So I would be in favor of it, knowing that it’s extra work.”

It was agreed that the issue might come up in a commission study session in the future for further discussion.