To: Board of County Commissioners
From: Prosecutor David Leyton
title
RE: Approval to create & fill one (1) Associate/Lead/Senior Assistant Prosecuting Attorney (APA) position & one (1) Social Service Worker-Victim Advocate position to carry out mandates of recent Supreme Court rulings on Life Without Parole cases
recommendation
BOARD ACTION REQUESTED:
We respectfully request authorization to create and fill one (1) Associate/Lead/Senior Assistant Prosecuting Attorney (APA) position and one (1) Social Service Worker-Victim Advocate position.
BACKGROUND:
As first presented to this Board in April, there have been a number of Supreme Court rulings both at the federal and state levels that have a direct and significant impact on the workload of the Prosecutor’s Office. In April of 2025, the Michigan Supreme Court (MSC) decided the Czarnecki and Taylor cases extending a previous ruling (Parks) relative to individuals sentenced automatically to life without parole (LWOP) for their crimes. The controlling case precedent tracks back to the United States Supreme Court’s (USSC) decisions in 2012 in Miller v Alabama and the 2016 case of Montgomery v Louisiana which declared automatic LWOP sentences for juveniles unconstitutional. The ruling was based on new developments in neuroscience relative to the age at which the human brain matures relative to its decision-making functions. The experts opined that the age of brain maturity was 25-26 years old. As a result of the Miller case, juveniles were no longer allowed to be automatically sentenced to life without parole and the Montgomery case made it retroactive to include past cases. Going forward, juveniles would need a hearing (now called a “Miller hearing”) to craft an individualized sentence to determine whether the juvenile offender should receive a “term of years” or a LWOP sentence. The Miller and Montgomery rulings created our first large group (27 defendants) of cases that required resentencing; as of this date, we still have 7 cases remaining. The MSC case of Parks (a Genesee County case) extended Miller to include 18-year-olds. On April 1st of this year, the MSC decided Poole making Parks retroactive and requiring resentencing for those previously convicted as 18-year-olds. And on April 10, 2025, the MSC rulings in Czarnecki and Taylor (also from Gen. Co.) held LWOP unconstitutional for 19-and 20-year-olds and requires resentencing. Presently, we have the remaining seven (7) original Juvenile LWOP cases, twenty-six (26) remaining 18-year-old LWOP cases to resentence and a current list of forty-four (44) 19-20-year-olds to resentence. Additionally, there is the possibility that future rulings may extend this precedent to 25-26-year-olds as one MSC Justice stated in the Czarnecki decision, and the possibility that it could theoretically extend to 30-year-olds someday.
DISCUSSION:
The amount of work required to competently handle such a workload necessitates a team of attorneys, advocates and support staff to address all the facets involved in the process. Our minimum need is to have at least one APA and one victim advocate solely dedicated to this work. The attorney’s work is highly specialized and requires experienced appellate prosecutors. It is important to understand in addition to handling the cases requiring resentencing that these decisions drastically change the landscape moving forward in homicide prosecutions. Normally homicide sentence “hearings” are perfunctory reviews of the presentence report, no legal briefs, no guidelines challenges and with no witnesses called to present testimony. This is in part because of the mandatory LWOP sentence commanded by First Degree Murder convictions. We now face a future where each first-degree murder sentence will now require a fully researched legal brief, expert testimony, the preparations of trial transcripts previously not needed and hours upon hours of preparation by the lawyers. The time frames established by MCL 769.25 and 769.25a which govern these proceedings require support staff not just assist in the substance but to manage the communications with the Michigan Department of Corrections. Defense counsel, Courts, transcriptionists, expert witnesses and victims’ families. It is truly a laborious and team-centered process.
IMPACT ON HUMAN RESOURCES:
The costs associated to create, post and fill the requested positions.
IMPACT ON BUDGET:
The costs for one APA and one Social Service Worker-Advocate position are already in our FY2026 budget at a total cost of $370,757.00 on the high end. One (1_ Senior APA:$231,940.00;one (1) Social Service Worker-Advocate: $108,530.00
IMPACT ON FACILITIES:
Care and maintenance costs associated with two new employees.
IMPACT ON TECHNOLOGY:
Costs associated with equipping new employees with laptops and monitors and docking stations, Ring Central phone accounts, and support which are accounted for through central services.
CONFORMITY TO COUNTY PRIORITIES:
This plan was guided by our value of providing exceptional service to our community through data-based decision making and planning in an effort to promote safe communities through effective, just and efficient prosecution of criminal cases.
resolution
TO THE HONORABLE CHAIRPERSON AND MEMBERS OF THE GENESEE COUNTY BOARD OF COMMISSIONERS, GENESEE COUNTY, MICHIGAN
LADIES AND GENTLEMEN:
BE IT RESOLVED, by this Board of County Commissioners of Genesee County, Michigan that the request by the Office of the Prosecuting Attorney to authorize creating, posting, and filling one (1) new Senior Assistant Prosecuting Attorney position and one (1) new Social Service Worker-Advocate position is approved (a copy of the memorandum request and supporting documentation being on file with the official records of the November 5, 2025 meeting of the Finance Committee of this Board.
BE IT FURTHER RESOLVED, that this Board directs the Director of Human Resources to have the necessary personnel position numbers created, as necessary, for said positions and to commence the hiring process so that the positions may be filled as soon as practicable, in accordance with County policy and applicable collective bargain agreement.