New state’s attorney focused on reform; ‘We’re headed in the right direction’ | Local News
FRANKLIN COUNTY — Bram Kranichfeld is six weeks into his job as the Interim Franklin County State’s attorney. With roughly 2,200 court cases needing his attention, it’s a tough gig.
Over the last three years, employees at the Franklin County State’s attorney’s Office have had to adapt to new regulations, confront pandemic-related disruptions, learn new software systems and cooperate in an impeachment investigation while the office’s caseload steadily increased.
Unwrapping and resolving those issues, however, is Kranichfeld’s responsibility. He’s confident the office can do it.
“I want this office to be the best state’s attorney’s office it can be … I want the people here to feel safe and to feel supported and for it to be as easy as possible for them to do their jobs,” Kranichfeld told the Messenger. “I think we’re headed in the right direction, and I think we can get there. But it’s not going to be an overnight thing.”
Over the long term
The court case backlog currently impacting the Vermont Judiciary didn’t happen overnight.
The results of changes made to sentencing regulations back in 2020 quickly complicated when the COVID-19 pandemic created additional challenges for the court systems, and efforts since have focused on untangling those issues.
During the pandemic, courthouses across the state closed their doors for over a year while hearings and trials went online. Meanwhile, court staff had to adapt to the court’s new Odyssey software architecture, leading to additional slowdowns.
The outside of the Franklin County State’s attorney’s Office on Lemnah Drive. The office – responsible for prosecuting the county’s criminal cases – has nine staff members, according to state info.
In Franklin County, the issue came to a head by November 2021 when Franklin County Judge Martin Maley made an unprecedented move to dismiss more than 350 cases involving low-level non-violent crimes, such as misdemeanor drug possession, retail theft and unlawful trespass.
At the time, the court’s caseload sat at approximately 2,400, according to court info, and some cases had remained on the court’s list since at least 2017.
“This court has never issued such an order. However, given the current circumstances, the court is persuaded that such action is necessary to allow the court to focus on the oldest and most serious cases on the docket, including cases involving defendant’s incarcerated awaiting trial,” Maley wrote in the dismissal order.
This past summer, another kink was thrown in the works when former Franklin County State’s attorney John Lavoie was investigated for creating a toxic workplace. According to state officials, Lavoie had been using slurs in reference to staff members regularly in the office, and they brought their concerns to the Vermont Department of State’s Attorneys and Sheriffs.
Their efforts, in part, kicked off a further investigation, this time headed by the Vermont House Special Committee on Impeachment. Lavoie stepped down months later, and Kranichfeld was appointed by Gov. Phil Scott to fill in until his administration names the official replacement.
“First of all, the office has suffered from some trauma over the last year. And I think that’s both institutional trauma to the office, and it’s personal trauma to the people in the office,” Kranichfeld said.“There’s this need for healing.”
The statewide picture
While Franklin County ranks as one of the counties most affected by the court backlog, the impact is a statewide issue.
Data released back in January by the state legislature estimates that Vermont’s court system had 13,727 active pending cases at the beginning of the year. Back in 2019, the number of pending cases sat at just over 8,000.
Consequently, state officials are looking at ways to reduce the backlog. To help locally, Kranichfeld said the state’s central office sent an attorney down to audit Franklin County’s caseload to get a better picture of how it can be resolved. While there’s no hard timeline attached to the work, it should help identify what steps can be taken to reduce the case backlog.
“It’s work. It takes time. You need man hours. You need people to actually sit down and review this stuff, and so the central office has been helping us with that task,” Kranichfeld said.
The Franklin County State’s attorney’s Office is also looking to hire new staff to tackle its work. While Lavoie was under public scrutiny, the department of states’ attorneys had frozen the hiring of a deputy state’s attorney and a legal assistant for the office, but the search is now back on post-Lavoie.
Kranichfeld, however, said he’s currently more concerned about incoming cases at the office. Before getting started on reducing the court’s backlog, he said he’s focused on helping the staff tackle what’s coming through the door while trying to reverse any harm done from how the office was handled before his time there.
“I don’t want to add more cases to the existing loads that the lawyers are currently handling here,” he said.
Part of that work has been reaching out to others within the justice system to strengthen various lines of communication and shore up different investigative processes related to his office. Some of his first steps, for example, were reaching out to law enforcement and other local agencies.
“When Mr. Kranichfeld assumed command, he promptly reached out to me, and as I understand it, to other law enforcement leaders in Franklin County to establish lines of communication,” Sheriff John Grismore said via email. “The feedback I have received from my deputies has been very positive of Mr. Kranichfeld thus far.”
In some cases, Grismore said, deputies and other law enforcement officers can express frustrations about the sentencing outcomes of the judiciary, especially on difficult cases, but Kranichfeld has helped by pairing each deputy with a deputy state’s attorney to help convey case status information.
“Most of the time, it simply boils down to the fact that sometimes we don’t understand the bigger picture,” Grismore said by email.
St. Albans Police Chief Maurice Lamoth echoed those sentiments.
“(State’s attorney) Kranichfeld has only been here for a few weeks. In that time I have been encouraged by the communication and efforts he has made to be involved in meetings we have had within the county,” he said by email.
Kranichfeld said he’s also trying to increase the number of offers that the Franklin County State’s attorney’s Office makes during the arraignment of those charged. If someone takes a plea deal early, then their case should be resolved more quickly than the process usually requires.
“That increases the chances that the case will resolve instead of the case just hanging around forever until we get to the end of the life of the case,” he said.
In Vermont in 2022, 12,367 cases were resolved by either plea or dismissal. A total of 40 went to trial.
Interim or not?
When Kranichfeld first moved to Vermont, he worked as a legal clerk in St. Albans. A lot has happened in the subsequent 18 years, but he said he’s interested in staying as Franklin County State’s attorney to continue the work he started to reform the office and tackle the county’s court backlog.
While currently positioned as the interim state’s attorney, he said he has put his hat in the ring to be Lavoie’s official replacement. Gov. Phil Scott, ultimately, has the final say.
“It’s an interesting feeling. It really is because I feel like in some ways I’m coming home. I spent so much time in this department,” Kranichfeld said.
After his early work as a law clerk in Franklin County, Kranichfeld served as a deputy state’s attorney in Chittenden County for eight years, and he worked as the executive director of the central state’s attorney department for two. He’s also an ordained priest of the Episcopal Church.
“I feel so blessed and I’m so thankful for the people in this office. The team that we got here is so dedicated, so talented, they have such a great work ethic and they know what they’re doing,” he said. “They’re good at their jobs.”
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