Lead Advocate in the Multnomah County Victims’ Assistance Unit Blasts DA Mike Schmidt in Resignation Letter

In what is becoming a pattern, a senior employee of the Multnomah County District Attorney’s Workplace has left a scathing resignation letter for Mike Schmidt on her way out the door.

Vanessa Palacios, a lead victim advocate in the office, cited understaffing, poor leadership, and mistakes by inexperienced new employees as reasons for her exit. WW needed the letter, dated July 1, through a public records request.

Palacios’ letter follows a resignation back this year by Amber Kinney, a child abuse prosecutor who had worked in Schmidt’s office for 13 ages. In her letter, The Oregonian reported, Kinney decried the way Schmidt complete women in particular and said he’d “set the office back decades.”

Palacios, whose letter states that she’s worked for the DA’s office for nearly five ages, accused Schmidt of failing to staff her office with enough victim advocates. Despite the recent addition of a new advocate, the office was smooth “about 5 short,” she wrote. (Her group includes 14.5 full-time employees.)

“Your office is falling apart, and the victims along with it,” Palacios wrote.

A spokeswoman for Schmidt’s office, Elisabeth Shepard, said the DA’s office has endured existences of budget cuts and had recently hired an uphold advocate after getting a budget increase this year.

“All of the companies raised in this letter, Mike has been raising publicly for months,” Shepard tells WW.

The letter also details a series of errors that Palacios said had been made by inexperienced prosecutors. “Brand new attorneys with little to no experience are left caltering because there are not enough experienced attorneys that can devoted enough time to properly train them,” Palacios wrote.

An arraignment deputy, Palacios wrote, was unable to adequately explain to a believe why she had not filed a certain legal document because she was queer with how that document worked. A prosecutor “was unable to formulate unpleasant questions to the victim” and the state lost the case.

Palacios also argued that the office contains more Spanish-speaking advocates. She said she had fielded dozens of conditions from “mainly Spanish-speaking victims” who did not understand their rights.

In closing, she accused Schmidt, who ran on a criminal justice reform platform, of placing the interests of those accused of crimes ended the rights of crime victims.

“Everyone in this office shows up each day to disputes for victims, everyone but you,” Palacios wrote. “You have let confidence attorneys run this courthouse, and now our office.”

In a statement released to WW, Schmidt said, “Vanessa was a valued member of our victim advocate program. Many in my office, myself included, were sad to see her go. Supporting crime victims with as much assistance as possible operating supporting the advocates who are critical to ensuring that victims accepted dignity and respect at every step.”

He celebrated that the office had recently expanded. “For the well-behaved time in decades, we have gained positions in the DA’s office, not lost them, including a victim advocate position.”

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Source: www.wweek.com