Baltimore State’s Attorney Marilyn Mosby deflects blame for prosecutorial staffing shortage

Baltimore State’s Attorney Marilyn Mosby deflected responsibility for a lack of prosecutors in her office while lashing out at media reports about the staffing shortages during a Baltimore City Council hearing Monday night about her agency’s budget.

Mosby, a Democrat who this year is seeking her third term as the city’s elected prosecutor, is asking the City Council for $39.6 million for the fiscal year starting July 1, a modest increase over this year.

She called for a “wholesale revamping” of the state’s attorney’s office salary scale, which she said was partly to blame for the attrition her office faces.

While acknowledging to council members that her office is understaffed and that her prosecutors are “overworked and underpaid,” Mosby attributed the attrition to the coronavirus pandemic, voluminous caseloads, uncompetitive salaries and “uncooperative witnesses and uncooperative judges.”

But Mosby began her presentation to the committee with opening remarks during which she dismissed news reports about the staffing woes as “misguided and politically charged.”

The Baltimore Sun published a story Monday that found Mosby’s felony prosecutorial units have been consistently understaffed, the level of experience for attorneys in her office has dropped off substantially, and morale is depleted.

Mosby called it “misinformation” but declined to say what in the story was wrong.

“I won’t let others, that’s the media or anyone else, define the narrative,” Mosby told the committee, with all of her agency’s leadership filling the audience.

In a letter sent Friday to Democratic City Councilman Eric Costello, the chairman of the council’s Ways and Means Committee that conducts the budget hearing process, Mosby counted 144 prosecutors in her employ. There were actually 133, as of that date, according to The Sun’s reporting, and that number counts everyone in her office with a law degree, several of whom, like her, don’t regularly prosecute cases.

Fifty prosecutors in Mosby’s office regularly try felony cases as of Friday, with current and former prosecutors interviewed by The Sun raising concerns that the number of prosecutors trying serious cases is causing a public safety problem.

She told council members Monday that those units are fully staffed, and that her office prioritizes the prosecution of such crimes, including drug and gun cases as well as rapes and homicides.

Costello asked Mosby about previous vacancy rates in her office, specifically how many assistant state’s attorney openings she had July 1, 2021, compared with present day. Mosby said she did not know that figure, and Camille Blake Fall, the chief administrative officer for the state’s attorney’s office, said it would be hard to give a precise number.

Costello, however, already had the information he asked for: As of last July 1, there were eight open ASA slots, according to the city budget office; as of May 19, there were 42 vacant assistant state’s attorney prosecutor positions in Mosby’s office, according to information she provided to council.

The budget hearing and questions about staffing in the Baltimore State’s Attorney’s Office come as Mosby faces reelection and a federal criminal case against her.

A federal grand jury indicted Mosby on charges of perjury and mortgage fraud related to her purchases of two Florida vacation homes. Federal prosecutors say she made early withdrawals from her retirement savings account under the guise of having suffered financially from the coronavirus to make down payments on the homes: an eight-bedroom rental near Disney World and a condo on the state’s Gulf Coast.

While Mosby spent much of the night defending her record, touting her conviction rate and repeatedly mentioning her reelection bid, her opponents in the July Democratic primary seized on recent headlines.

“Every day there is a new revelation about mismanagement and disarray in the State’s Attorney’s Office, and the people of Baltimore are paying the price,” said Thiru Vignarajah, a former city, state and federal prosecutor. “Never has the case for change been clearer.”

Defense attorney Ivan Bates, who like Vignarajah is challenging Mosby in consecutive elections, said he has been raising the alarm about prosecutor attrition as a public safety concern for years.

“It’s past time to address the mismanagement that caused the domino effect of losing important cases, low staff morale, unbelievable turnover, and even showing up to court in the first place,” Bates said.

During Monday evening’s hearing though, Mosby sidestepped other questions from committee members about the number of cases her office drops and the number of times her attorneys failed to show up to court — “that doesn’t happen, maybe it’s happened once, or even twice,” Mosby said.

Her attorneys have missed bail review hearings at least five times since Nov. 4, including missing two separate hearings on May 20, according to Baltimore Court Watch, a group of city residents who observe court proceedings.

Councilman Mark Conway’s asked Mosby about succession plans for when prosecutors leave the office.

Mosby said if the city would give her the money for higher salaries, fewer people would quit. She said her office has struggled to match prosecutor salaries from state’s attorney’s offices in neighboring counties, the Maryland Office of the Attorney General and the U.S. Attorney’s Office.

While Baltimore has the highest starting salary for an assistant state’s attorney compared with its neighbors, other counties pay more for experienced lawyers, she said.

Prosecutors often leave her office for better pay, a lighter caseload and improved work-life balance, Mosby said.

“I don’t think we can put this on anyone but ourselves,” she said.