Kyle Dunphey

(Utah News Dispatch) As a young prosecutor, Sim Gill would see the same faces cycle through the courtroom. They often had chronic health issues, struggled to find housing, work or child care, were plagued by poor mental health or battled drug addiction.

As his career progressed, he would start to see their children, often with the same needs as their parents.

“I’ve been doing this long enough now that I’m seeing their grandchildren,” said Gill, the Salt Lake County District Attorney.

Breaking that cycle requires innovation, Gill said, and a focus on what he calls “upstream” solutions — addressing community needs, whether it’s housing, health care, education or mental health and addiction services, so that people can get help before they wind up in the criminal justice system.

Those upstream solutions took center stage last week as prosecutors and district attorneys from around the country — Hawaii, Seattle, Minnesota, New York and more — convened in downtown Salt Lake City for the fourth National Prosecution Best Practices Conference.

Throughout the two-day conference, prosecutors discussed creative approaches to prosecuting low-level offenses, new research on violent crime reductions, community outreach programs, and victim advocacy.

“The goal is to recognize in a really honest way that the work that we do is very nuanced and difficult. And, if you decide not to do it, it still has to be done tomorrow. So it’s about embracing the difficult and really leaning into doing it better,” Gill told Utah News Dispatch.

Those innovative solutions included a new policy from Ramsey County in Minnesota, where county attorney John Choi stopped prosecuting cases that stemmed from non-public safety traffic stops — instances where police stopped a car because of an expired registration, no license plate lights, a cracked windshield or window tint, then searched the vehicle and discovered drugs or weapons.

Choi, who presented during the conference, said officers would find contraband in about 2% of those vehicle searches.

“I think we’ve been thinking too much about that 2% and not enough about the 98%, and what that does to the trust in our legal system and policing,” said Choi.

Data from the Justice Innovation Lab showed that Black drivers were four times as likely to be stopped and nine times as likely to be searched as white drivers.

One of those Black motorists was Philando Castile, a 32-year-old school cafeteria supervisor who was legally carrying a firearm when he was pulled over during a non-public safety traffic stop in 2016. Castile told officer Jeronimo Yanez with the St. Anthony Police Department that he had a firearm in the car. Despite Castile’s claim that he wasn’t reaching for it, Yanez fired seven rounds into the car.

As Castile laid in the car, dying, he can be heard saying “I wasn’t reaching for it” on police body camera footage.

Choi would go on to charge Yanez with second-degree manslaughter and two felony counts for dangerous discharge of a firearm. In 2017, Yanez was found not guilty, but Choi said it prompted a shift in how local law enforcement viewed non-essential traffic stops.

“There was more openness and willingness to think about this. And reckon with the fact that this kind of policing was not that effective, and maybe we should make a change for the benefit of our community,” Choi said.

In 2021, Choi announced that his office would stop prosecuting cases that stemmed from non-public safety traffic stops, a decision that was heavily criticized, even mocked. In the years that followed, non-public safety traffic stops among Black drivers decreased by 66%, Choi said, while the amount of gun recoveries didn’t change.

“There was no discernible difference … the amount of gun recoveries was very low to begin with, and it remained low,” he said.

Now, when a police officer in Ramsey County observes a light violation, expired vehicle registration or other equipment-related offense, they will record it, but not stop the vehicle. Within three days, the driver will get a letter in the mail reminding them to fix the violation, while offering them financial assistance to repair their vehicle.

“The feedback, I just can’t tell you in words how great it’s been. It’s really restored trust in policing in our community at a really, really critical time,” said Choi, who called the decision “the most controversial thing that I have done.”

Restoring trust through ideas that might seem controversial, or at least novel, was an underlying theme during the conference in Salt Lake City.

There was a presentation from a New York state-funded program called SNUG — “guns” spelled backwards — that employs former gang members as case managers and social workers to work with people who carry firearms, have a history of violence, or have been recently shot or know someone who was.

There was a prosecutor from Brooklyn District Attorney Eric Gonzalez’s office who described a form of mediation that helped resolve a spate of violence by working with young gang members to dissuade retaliatory shootings.

There was a researcher who pointed to Chester, Pennsylvania, which once had some of the highest violent crime rates in the country. After county attorneys aggressively prosecuted unsolved and attempted shootings, while partnering with non-government community leaders and bolstering outreach and mental health services, the city saw the fewest gun homicides in two decades.

“All of these things inform and color how we approach our work,” said Gill, who pointed specifically to SNUG as a possible model for his office and other district attorneys. “Having credible messengers and lived experiences, going into communities where we want to make an impact on public safety and reduce crime.”

It’s too early to tell whether any of the ideas floated during the conference could become policies at the Salt Lake County District Attorney’s Office. Gill pointed to several programs in his office that are already relatively novel, including courts designed to cater to mental health needs, homelessness, veterans and families.

During the conference two years ago, there was a focus on victim advocacy and hiring social workers — now, one of the largest divisions in the office is staffed by victim advocates and licensed therapists, which Gill calls a “product and manifestation” of those previous conferences.

It’s part of what Gill calls a “trauma informed, victim-centered approach.”

“We’re trying to get them access to services and mental health support, as they’re going through this process, so they feel seen and responded to,” Gill said. Convictions are important for high-profile crimes like murder or rape, but it shouldn’t be the only metric for justice in lower-level cases, he told Utah News Dispatch — whether the victim feels advocated for and supported is also important.

“Getting a conviction doesn’t always mean a win. You could get a conviction and have someone do dead time and get nothing. Or you can get a plea in advance and get someone into treatment,” Gill said. “Accountability with the right kind of intervention is going to serve the community best.”

But programs like that, and reform in general, can be expensive. If Gill had unlimited funds, the first thing he would do is hire more prosecutors. By his math, each aggravated homicide case requires about 300 hours of work, conservatively, meaning a prosecutor can’t work more than three or four of those cases at any given time.

“I need more bodies to be able to do that work,” Gill said. “I call it an investment in time. I don’t have the luxury to invest the time that is necessary to achieve the outcomes in the way that our community wants.”

And, sticking with the theme of the conference, it all comes back to upstream resources for Gill. They’re cheaper, he said, than the downstream solution which is often incarceration.

“If you can’t feed yourself, if there is no stability in your life, if you don’t have the role models that will give you support so you can thrive in school,” he said. “If I can make investments upstream, then I could have better outcomes.”