cause the election would have been the next year, in 2010, right? DF: That is correct.
BP: Because of the four-year term. What made you want to think about that oppor- tunity and relocating your family up to the northern part of the state? DF: I really always had enjoyed being a
prosecutor and doing the work of a pros- ecutor. When I was in private practice, I en- joyed private practice, I really did, but there was a lot about being a public servant that I missed when I was in private practice. I saw this opportunity to return to what had always been my goal when I was a depu- ty state’s attorney, which was to become a state’s attorney. That opportunity opened up, and it came at a time when I hadn’t quite
settled into private practice—my
plan about private practice had changed with Bob’s death—and so I saw an oppor- tunity to get back into what I really liked doing. So, I took it. I was lucky enough to get appointed and after that, I ran for elec- tion that next year and was successful. I have been there ever since. It was certainly an interesting conversation at home about whether to make the move, that’s for sure.
BP: How old are your kids now? DF: My kids now are twelve and four-
teen.
BP: So they were eight and ten then? DF: About that, yes. We moved in No- vember. We moved into our house the weekend before the Tuesday I was sworn in and the kids started a new school. They
both have finished their elementary school now. One is going into high school and one is going into middle school..
BP: How big is your office? DF: The office has one full-time deputy
state’s attorney who is funded by the State of Vermont and another deputy state’s at- torney that is funded by a federal grant to prosecute domestic and sexual violence. The office has two administrative staff and a part-time victim’s advocate. We have a part-time investigator who is assigned from the Vergennes police at the moment and funded by the same federal grant to work on domestic and sexual violence cases.
BP: Is that adequate staff for the casel- oad in Addison County? DF: The caseload is tough to keep up with. We could definitely use a position or two in my office to keep up with the work.
BP: A lawyer position? DF: A lawyer position.
BP: That court has one judge sitting in all
three jurisdictions? DF: Yes. We have one judge in all three jurisdictions, and we get a second judge once a week, on Wednesdays.
BP: So how often is there a criminal docket? Every day? DF: There is criminal court, every Mon-
day, all day. Tuesday is either all day juve- nile court, which we cover, or half juvenile and half criminal. Wednesday, Thursday, and Friday are a mixture of civil court and
family court. That’s also when we do jury draws and jury trials. Sometimes, we have criminal court on those other days, but pri- marily Monday and Tuesday.
BP: What kinds of cases, not caseload
in terms in numbers, but what kind of cas- es are you seeing in Middlebury, Addison County? DF: We have all the kinds of cases you might expect. We have a pending murder case right now, all the way to DLS cases, retail theft cases. We see a lot of drug cas- es; I think everyone around the state sees a lot of drug cases right now. We have a lot of heroin cases, a lot of theft crimes that involve people stealing for money for drugs, burglary cases, forgery cases, fraud cases. We see the whole gamut of cases. We probably prosecute about a thousand criminal cases a year. We were a little over a thousand cases last year and that doesn’t include juveniles.
BP: That is interesting about the drug cases and the other property crimes that relate to drug addictions. Normally, you think of those things as a Burlington prob- lem, a city problem, maybe a Rutland prob- lem. I guess I hadn’t thought of quaint little Middlebury having the same problem. DF: It’s not necessarily Middlebury; it’s all of Addison County. As rural as Addison County is, as compared to Burlington, we have a lot of drug cases that we are pros- ecuting and there are a lot of heroin cases and a lot of burglaries that appear to be di- rectly related to those drug issues.
BP: One of the things the Victims Com- pensation Board is spending a lot of time talking about is the increasing number of domestic violence cases, and the seem- ing inability to stop that from happening— whether it’s lack of training of young peo- ple in schools or what they are exposed to at home just sort of overwhelms any sort of training they may get at schools. Do you see that as a major issue in your county? DF: It is. It always has been. I don’t mean
to sound like drugs is the only issue we deal with. Drugs come to mind because of what appears to be a significant increase. The domestic and sexual violence cases— we have those as well. They appear to be relatively constant. You raise a good point: the education has gotten better, the en- forcement has gotten better, our response has gotten better, our work with victims has gotten better, our education of the offend- ers has gotten better, but we are still see- ing those cases come to us. We are also lucky to have the federal grant to provide additional resources for those cases.
BP: Can you talk a little bit about the adequacy of state funding of prosecutors,
6 THE VERMONT BAR JOURNAL • FALL 2013
www.vtbar.org
President’s Column
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