Prince George’s County State’s Attorney Glenn Ivey is looking to hire four prosecutors, starting to fill a gap caused by a state-decreed hiring cap that will soon be lifted.
During its last session, the Maryland General Assembly ended a requirement for Prince George’s County to go through the state legislature to hire new prosecutors. It was a law that applied to no other county, and neither lawmakers, Ivey nor County Executive Jack Johnson is certain of when or why the law was originally passed, although some believe it might have applied to several counties and the application to Prince George’s was just a holdover.
Either way, once the new measure is signed by Gov. Martin O’Malley and goes into effect July 1, the County Council and county executive will be free to hire prosecutors.
The State’s Attorney’s Office has lagged not only behind other jurisdictions in hiring, but also failed to keep pace with the rapid increase in the county’s population and the size of its police force, both of which have led to a larger workload for prosecutors, officials said.
However, Johnson, facing a $100 million budget deficit, has placed all non-public safety positions under a hiring freeze, and while the prosecutors play a crime-fighting role, they’re not among the first responders who can be hired without special approval from the county executive, said John Erzen, a Johnson spokesman.
Ivey said he was seeking state grants to fill two of the positions; one a “community prosecutor” who would focus attention on high-crime areas, the other a mortgage fraud lawyer targeting the county’s foreclosure crisis.
The other two positions would be funded by the county, although Erzen said Johnson has not seen a specific request for those jobs yet. But, he added, “if we find a position that we absolutely have to fill, we will certainly find a way to do that.”
Mel Franklin, an Upper Marlboro lawyer and Prince George’s community activist who pushed for the removal of the state cap, said the law “caused the state attorneys to be overworked, underpaid and understaffed, and that has led to errors.” Ivey, Franklin added, “is a talented leader, but there’s little he can do with the massive caseload.”
