Hatfield talks about changes in Prosecutor's Office

Jun. 18—For more than a decade, Raleigh County continually elected the same prosecuting attorney, who typically ran unopposed in the general election.

However, that changed roughly 18 months ago when Benjamin Hatfield threw his name into the hat — and beat the long-time Democratic incumbent, Kristen Keller.

Hatfield ran on the promise of change and a desire to "put teeth back into our justice system."

Though he still has more than half of his term left to go, Hatfield told The Register-Herald in an interview this week that he feels he's made a "really good start" on all his campaign promises.

"At the very least, I don't think there's been anything hollow," he said. "I've tried to be mindful of what I said I was going to do."

In the short time he's been on the job, Hatfield said his office has secured more than 1,000 felony convictions, had 10 jury trials and saved the county nearly half a million dollars on its jail bill.

Aside from the numbers, Hatfield said he has upgraded the technology in his office for remote capabilities and revamped the way his office deals with abuse and neglect cases from Child Protective Services.

In the coming month, Hatfield said he also plans to unveil the Bureau of Juvenile Justice within his office, which will handle juvenile status, juvenile diligence, truancy and juvenile drug court.

In looking at the work he's done with the help of his tight-knit staff, Hatfield said he is proud of what they've accomplished thus far and he plans to build on that in the coming years.

A native of Wyoming County, Hatfield earned his law degree from Syracuse University College of Law in 2010 and later practiced at the law firm of Anelli Xavier, PC, in Syracuse.

But feeling the tug of home, Hatfield returned to West Virginia to live in Beckley with his wife and, later, three daughters.

Upon his return, he has worked as an assistant prosecuting attorney, an assistant public defender, a civil litigation attorney at Farmer Cline & Campbell PLLC and even had his own practice for a few years where he focused primarily on criminal defense and working as a guardian ad litem for abused and neglected children in child abuse and neglect cases.

While serving as Raleigh County prosecuting attorney, Hatfield was named 2021 Concord University Young Alumnus of the Year. He was also awarded the Just For Kids Inc. Champion of Children Award in 2022 for his dedication to serving abused children in the community. AWAY, formerly the Women's Resource Center, also gave him a certificate of recognition for his work in domestic violence.

With his vast array of experience, Hatfield said he already had an idea of changes he'd like to make in the Raleigh County Prosecuting Attorney's Office before he was elected.

----First on the list was addressing how the office handled child abuse and neglect cases.

"A lot of people look at the prosecutor's office as prosecuting crime, and that's certainly a majority of what we do here, but we're also the statutory attorney for Child Protective Services in cases where they have to remove children from their parents' custody," he said. "Those cases are child abuse and neglect cases, and they're handled in the circuit courts of this jurisdiction."

Hatfield said one of his main concerns with these cases was the amount of time it was taking to achieve "permanency" or a final ruling.

For these CPS cases, Hatfield said they end in one of two ways. Either the parent and the child are reunited, which is called "reunification" and is the ultimate goal as mandated by West Virginia State Code, or permanency is achieved outside of the home, which could mean guardianship or adoption.

Whatever the result, Hatfield said "the goal should be to do that as soon as possible."

"Two years in the life of an adult, it's two years. Two years in the life of someone going from, say, birth to being 2 years old, or going from 3 to 5. That's a majority of their life," he said. "So it's big, big impressionable impactful years and we need to make sure that we're respecting that child's developmental well-being."

Handling all these abuse and neglect cases for his office are Leigh Lefler, who was hired in early 2021, and Dominick Cangemi, who was the former clerk for Justice John A. Hutchison, now the current chief justice of the Supreme Court of Appeal of West Virginia, while he was a circuit judge in Raleigh County.

Hatfield said the pair attend every multi-disciplinary team (MDT) meeting, where those involved in the case, from CPS workers to defense lawyers, meet to determine the plan for the case moving forward.

"It's a plan involving everyone in the case so that everyone is on the same page," he said. "Prior to January of 2021, the assistant prosecutors handling these cases weren't at the MDT meetings. So they weren't taking part in this decision-making process. They weren't taking part in developing these plans for reunification or for permanency."

With these changes put in place, as well as ensuring that court orders are entered in a timely manner, Hatfield said these cases are now coming to a conclusion within roughly nine months, "a stark contrast to what was happening prior to 2021."

"Kids are a huge part of our community because they're the most vulnerable population that we have," he said. "Adults can stand up for themselves in most circumstances, but kids are infinitely vulnerable ... We have to protect our kids and we have to make sure that their well-being is protected. So that's the first branch that I overhauled when I got here because it was, quite frankly, to me the most important."

----Next on Hatfield's agenda was targeting how the office handled major criminal cases. When Hatfield first took office, he said there were 719 indicted felony cases.

While that number now sits at 550, Hatfield said there have been roughly 500 felony indictments since he started in January 2021 and over 1,000 felony convictions.

"One thing I wanted to do in how we handle crime in courts is take more cases to trial," he said. "Especially given the first nine months of the 18-month tenure, the first half, we were dealing with some enormous Covid protocols still, in which the first three months of my tenure jury trials were prohibited."

As soon as that ban was lifted, Hatfield said Chief Deputy Prosecuting Attorney Brian Parsons tried Tremaine Jackson and obtained a first-degree murder conviction.

This was followed by the case of Richard Chambers, whom Hatfield convicted of 20 charges involving the sexual abuse of his stepgranddaughter. He was sentenced to 255-855 years in prison.

This year, Hatfield's office tried Davide Hudson, who was found guilty of murder and kidnapping and sentenced to four consecutive life sentences.

In total, Hatfield said his office has had 10 jury trials including some in Fayette County.

"That's one of the highest rates in the last two decades, at the very least," he said.

Hatfield said they're also being mindful of those awaiting trial or a conclusion to their case at Southern Regional Jail because it's done so on the dime of county taxpayers.

"The goal has been, not to let people out of jail, it's been to examine those people that are in pretrial incarceration for protracted periods of time and get them tried or get them convicted at an earlier period of time, to reduce the amount of pretrial incarceration that the county pays," he said.

Hatfield said when he started, they had a "Top 20 List" which represented the 20 people who had been at Southern Regional Jail the longest.

"Very few people on that list had been incarcerated for less than a year," he said. In the 18 months he's been in office, Hatfield said that Top 20 List now has only two people on it who have been in pretrial incarceration for more than a year.

Hatfield said this leads to thousands of dollars of savings for the county, which initially budgeted $2.5 million for its annual jail bill.

Seeing these savings, Hatfield said the commission decreased the jail bill budget to $2.25 million for the 2021-2022 fiscal year, which runs from July 1, 2021, to June 30, 2022.

He added that they're on pace to end the 2021-2022 fiscal year $200,000 under budget for the jail bill.

Hatfield said these savings have allowed him to increase his staff, which now includes nine assistant prosecuting attorneys, two more than his predecessor.

Hatfield said much of the changes he's implemented would not be possible without Parsons, who has served as mentor in the office.

"He's really helped me implement my vision here," Hatfield said.

----Hatfield said the next area he plans to revamp in his office is the juvenile system. Hatfield said in July he plans to announce a new department within the office — the Bureau of Juvenile Justice, which will be headed by Assistant Prosecuting Attorney John Bridi.

"We're looking at when juveniles misbehave themselves, what can we do to remediate these problems in adolescence, so that they don't cross over into these kids' adult lives," he said. "We've come up with a plan. We're implementing it; it's going to be effective July 5. I'm excited about the perspective of doing, for that area of law, what we've been able to do for abuse, neglect and criminal."

Hatfield said this bureau will handle juvenile status and diligence cases, truancy and juvenile drug court.

"The goal of the juvenile justice system isn't to punish ... we're governed by the least restrictive alternatives, which means the entirety of the juvenile justice system is supposed to be remedial, therapeutic and engage in corrective measures," he said.

Hatfield said another area he'd like his office to focus on is community engagement. He said he's still working on developing a plan for this strategy but he'd like "the people of Raleigh County to feel more comfortable with this office — that they can come to this office when they have issues, when they have problems and they know that we're there for them."