Speaker Recap for Oct. 24, 2011 - Jan Scully
We were honored this week to hear our Sacramento District Attorney Jan Scully provide an update on current events at her offices. Ms. Scully is a Sacramento native, and is currently serving her fifth term as our local D.A. As distinguished club member Dick Osen pointed out in his introductory remarks, our county is quite privileged to have Ms. Scully as our chief prosecutor, as she has held her position longer than any other Sacramento D.A., and has represented our county at the state and national levels with great distinction.
Ms. Scully updated us on the current state of affairs in her busy office. Unfortunately, due to the current recession, her office budget has been slashed, and she has been forced to curtail certain services. For example, her prosecutorial staff has been cut approximately 10%, her investigation department is down about 30%, and her crime lab budget is off by 34%. Fortunately, due to the fortuitous settlement of a recent environmental case, which brought in significant settlement funds, as well as due to her excellent management skills, she was able to prevent significant lay-offs of key personnel – at least for this year. One of the challenges facing her office going forward is how to maintain the current level of service in the years ahead.
Ms. Scully reminded us all of the myriad functions and services provided by her department throughout Sacramento County. She reviewed the public safety functions – comprised primarily of sheriff’s deputies, prosecution attorneys, and probation officers (and related staff and support). She noted that her office is required to prosecute all crimes occurring outside city limits, and she processes a high volume of cases even though the arrests may have been made by local police and/or highway patrol officers. She also reviewed the various components of the criminal justice system – comprised of the courtroom personnel, judges, public defenders, and the like.
Looking ahead, Ms Scully reminded us that her office faces a tough “balancing act” of having to continue to process a high volume of cases while at the same time cutting personnel in several areas. As an example, she noted that the Supreme Court’s recent decision requiring a reduction in overcrowding in our state’s prison population has resulted in an increased number of prisoners being remanded to the custody of the local county jails, where understaffed facilities and probation offices struggle to handle the greatly increased volume of prisoners. Given these difficult challenges, we are indeed fortunate to have someone as gifted and passionate about her job as Jan Scully. We thank her for her ongoing dedication to our county, and for her time to address our club.
As an aside, we also congratulate Ms. Scully for the reported success of her son, Blaine, who has become a world-class rugby player at U. C. Berkeley (Go Bears!) and was part of the U.S. squad at the 2011 Rugby World Cup. We look forward to following Blaine in the press as he prepares to join our future Olympic team and strives to bring home the gold for America!