Wake County will have the most understaffed prosecutor’s office in the state if North Carolina’s new budget plan becomes law. The $34 billion budget plan passed the state legislature Thursday and is now before Democratic Gov. Josh Stein to review.

Impact on Public Safety

According to Wiley Nickel, the Democratic candidate for Wake County District Attorney, the lack of funding for new prosecutors in Wake County will have a significant impact on public safety. “Victims are going to have to wait years, rather than months, for justice,” Nickel said in an interview. “Repeat offenders will stay out in the street much longer, things will fall through the cracks. And it deliberately targets Wake County.”

The state court system uses a combination of population levels and crime numbers to determine how many assistant district attorneys each prosecutorial district should have. Wake County is currently at 64% of full staffing levels, with only 45 prosecutors funded, despite the state judicial branch saying the county needs 70.

Corruption Investigations

Some Democrats say the choice to keep Wake County prosecutors overworked wasn’t a mistake, but rather a deliberate decision. Nickel campaigned largely on a platform of ramping up investigations into political corruption — cases that are almost all handled out of the Wake County DA’s office, since it’s the state capitol.

“Perhaps it’s maybe a new, incoming new district attorney, who used to be in this chamber, who was a former colleague, who also said that he’s going after corruption,” said Sen. Sydney Batch, D-Wake. “And perhaps they don’t want him to have 10 more people to come after individuals in this building. To investigate.”

Original reporting: WRAL Raleigh — read the source article.