Prosecutors at the Shasta County District Attorney鈥檚 office work a lot. Brian Ziegler focuses on drug crimes. He said he probably manages hundreds of cases at any one time.
鈥淚 leave anywhere between 7 and 7:30 in the morning, and even on non-trial days, I get home at 6:30, 7 o鈥檆lock at night,鈥� he said. 鈥淪o it鈥檚 about a 12-hour day for me.鈥�
Ziegler isn鈥檛 alone. The entire office is feeling the strain.
District Attorney Stephanie Bridgett said the workload is the same as counties with double the resources, and her deputies are buckling under the pressure.
鈥淲e can鈥檛 solve this until we have more resources,鈥� she said.
As vacancies pile up, Bridgett says Shasta County needs to pay more to attract prosecutors who would otherwise choose higher-paying jobs in California鈥檚 urban counties. At stake is whether a rural county can afford to be tough on crime.
Bridgett herself makes almost $225,000 a year, but the lowest-paid attorneys on her staff make about a third of that, far less than what you could get at a private law firm or a district attorney鈥檚 office in the Bay Area.
"You shouldn't have to sacrifice other very important things in life in order to stay here."
For some prosecutors, the low pay has real consequences. Ben Rothbaum said he can鈥檛 afford both rent and childcare.
鈥淪o what we ended up having to do is we bought a manufactured home, and I essentially live in a trailer park,鈥� Rothbaum said.
But low pay doesn鈥檛 just affect prosecutors鈥� personal lives鈥攊t also limits how thoroughly they can prepare cases. Shasta County Prosecutor Nolan Weber said better staffing means you can actually do your job.
鈥淚n San Diego, you get to do real trial prep, meaning you get to look and survey the entirety of your case, all the witnesses, all their backgrounds, all their prior cases, your case itself,鈥� he said. 鈥淵ou can look at all the media on it, and you get to sit there and think about your case and write things down.鈥�
Despite the pay, all of these prosecutors chose to come to Shasta County because they like living here, and say it鈥檚 a great place to raise their children. Some of them, like Ziegler, came because it鈥檚 a conservative area, where the district attorney shares their views on crime.
鈥淲e love it here,鈥� said Rothbaum. 鈥淏ut you shouldn鈥檛 have to sacrifice other very important things in life in order to stay here.鈥�
But even if Shasta County raised salaries, it might still have trouble hiring prosecutors.
Societal trends chilling new prosecutors
Bridgett said when she started at the DA鈥檚 office in 2002, she was up against hundreds of other applicants.
鈥淚t was a very, very competitive process in order to get into a DA office, not just Shasta County, but anywhere in the state,鈥� she said.
Now, Bridgett said they are lucky to get one application every month. And luckier still if they manage to hire that person before they take a job somewhere else.
鈥淭wenty-three years ago, law enforcement was looked at very differently,鈥� she said. 鈥淢ore people in society looked at it as an honorable, noble job.鈥�
Bridgett blames the societal shift away from prosecution on high-profile police brutality cases like the murder of George Floyd in 2020.
But changes in state law are also affecting modern-day prosecution.
Senate Bill 1437, which went into effect in 2019, changed the way people can be charged and convicted of murder in some situations. It also allows people who were previously sentenced to petition the court to overturn their conviction.
鈥淪o a significant portion of our resources in the DA鈥檚 office have to be focused on relitigating those old cases,鈥� said Greg Toten, CEO of the California District Attorneys Association.
Toten said the change has 鈥渆roded the notion of finality in cases.鈥�
That can have a chilling effect on prosecutors, according to Bridgett.
鈥淭here鈥檚 satisfaction in being able to put someone who really hurt someone in prison for 30 or 40 years, and knowing they鈥檙e going to stay in there for 30 or 40 years,鈥� she said. 鈥淭hese newer prosecutors put someone in for 30 years, but they have to talk to the victim and say, 鈥楾here鈥檚 a chance in five years from now, we鈥檙e going to call you because the new law says that they can try to petition to get out.鈥欌��
"They start listening to themselves, and they don't really listen to rural communities"
Rothbaum said these laws are being passed without considering the resources that rural communities have to deal with them.
鈥淢ental health diversion, which was passed in 2018, has placed an enormous burden now on the courts and on the community and how to address this problem,鈥� he said.
The state鈥檚 mental health diversion process allows some defendants with mental health disorders to avoid going to trial if they agree to treatment for their disorder. That disorder had to play a role in the crime, and murder or serious sexual crimes are exempt.
Democrats in the state assembly hold a supermajority in both houses, and Republicans represent mostly smaller, rural parts of California, like Shasta County.
鈥淏ecause we鈥檙e rural, we have much less of a say,鈥� Ziegler said. 鈥淪o they start listening to themselves, and they don鈥檛 really listen to rural communities, and our voices don鈥檛 get heard in things like mental health.鈥�
Location, location, location
But the biggest struggle might be Shasta County鈥檚 location, a largely rural county that鈥檚 a three-and-a-half-hour drive from the Bay Area.
Rory Little, a law professor for more than 30 years at UC Law San Francisco, said he鈥檚 noticed the number of students choosing prosecution trends up and down based on what鈥檚 happening in society. He said he sees more people moving into prosecution today than five years ago.
鈥淚t鈥檚 always been a struggle to get people to apply to the more distant counties in California,鈥� Little said. 鈥淚 advise students every year to apply outside of the seven or eight hot counties. And once in a while, I win.鈥�
Where someone studies law can greatly influence where they end up. Almost all the law schools in Northern California are near Sacramento or the Bay Area, where prosecutor pay is much higher.
鈥淟aw school is hard, and they鈥檙e working really hard,鈥� Little said. 鈥淪o for their job opportunities, they tend to follow whatever path is easiest.鈥�
Unfilled jobs
The Shasta County DA鈥檚 office would likely be able to manage its current workload 鈥� if it could just fill the current vacancies. Bridgett said out of 28 attorney positions in total, they have four open jobs right now, a number that fluctuates as attorneys leave and get hired. At one point in 2023, she said they were down eight attorneys.
鈥淒uring the four and a half years that I鈥檝e worked here, I have seen 13 prosecutors leave,鈥� prosecutor Noah Kincaid said.
Kincaid said many people leave because of low salaries and move to DA鈥檚 offices that pay more.
Filling those vacancies or even getting people to apply is difficult. Starting wages for prosecutors are far lower in rural Northern California than in other parts of the state.
The starting salary for prosecutors in Shasta County is around $86,000. In Sacramento County, the same position starts at $131,000, which still outpaces Shasta County, even when factoring in the higher cost of living.
Prevention or prosecution
Not everyone agrees that more prosecutors are the solution.
Shasta County Public Defender Ashley Jones said looking at the root causes of crime would help reduce the workload throughout the criminal justice system.
鈥淲e鈥檙e not going to be able to prosecute our way out of homelessness. We鈥檙e not going to be able to prosecute our way out of mental illness and substance abuse or addiction,鈥� Jones told the County Board of Supervisors in March. 鈥淏ut if we can start addressing those needs, we can hopefully reduce crime and make our community safer.鈥�
The Public Defender鈥檚 office also struggles with attracting lawyers. Deputy attorneys at both offices are paid the same, and an increase in staff at the DA鈥檚 office means more public defenders need to be hired, too.
Jeff Gorder, the county鈥檚 public defender until 2018, said a lot of the DA鈥檚 workload is of their own making.
鈥淭he DA has a lot of discretion between whether to file something, in many cases as a felony or a misdemeanor, and a felony case requires a lot more work than a misdemeanor,鈥� he said.
Republican-leaning counties like Shasta tend to have higher felony caseloads than Democratic ones. In 2023, Shasta County prosecutors handled almost 100 more felony cases for every attorney in the office than the statewide average.
But Bridgett said being tough on crime is what the county, and her prosecutors, want.
鈥淲e鈥檙e all really focused on what鈥檚 the right thing to do and protecting victims that it can actually be kind of hard to self-restrain in order to make our job easier,鈥� Bridgett said.
The public seems to support her view; Bridgett sailed to an easy re-election in 2022, beating her opponent by 11 percentage points.
A county perspective
It鈥檚 going to be difficult for the county to be tough on crime if there aren鈥檛 any lawyers to take those cases to court.
Shasta County Supervisor Matt Plummer said the county needs not only to fund the DA鈥檚 office but every other county department too.
Simply raising salaries every time a department struggles to hire staff can鈥檛 be the only solution.
鈥淭here鈥檚 no way we鈥檙e ever going to be able to staff up with our resources to match the same number of felony filings, and therefore, [have the number of] district attorneys that Placer or Santa Barbara County have,鈥� he said.
The county has practiced conservative budgeting, especially over the past few years, because of economic uncertainty. That鈥檚 led to budget trimming and staff cuts to ensure that the county remains in the black.
Plummer said looking at how the county can address high workloads and high vacancy rates is going to be important.
鈥淭hat might be reducing your felony filings, or it might be reducing your misdemeanor filings,鈥� Plummer said. 鈥淥r it might mean that we do allocate more resources there and take them from somewhere else.鈥�
Plummer hopes to accomplish this through a countywide strategic plan currently underway. It would outline the county鈥檚 goals over the next three to five years across broad categories, like public safety. The strategic plan would include a few top priorities, along with specific goals each department should try to achieve. Plummer expects the final version to come out in the next six to nine months.
The battle over pay for prosecutors, as well as public defenders, will play out in the next few months, as the county debates a new budget and negotiates with the union representing the lawyers.
