Policy Statement
A Stronger Partnership for Victims and Public Safety in Island County
How the Island County Prosecutor's Office and CADA Could Work Together While Protecting Victim Confidentiality
When someone experiences domestic violence, sexual assault, stalking, or related abuse, seeking help can be one of the most difficult decisions they will ever make. Victims may be frightened about their safety, worried about their children or financial security, or uncertain about what will happen if they contact law enforcement. Some are willing to participate in a criminal prosecution. Others are not ready, and some may never choose to do so. Whatever their circumstances, victims need to know that they can receive support, understand their options, and speak privately with someone whose primary responsibility is to help them.
I believe Island County has an opportunity to strengthen that support by establishing a formal partnership between the Island County Prosecuting Attorney's Office and Citizens Against Domestic Abuse (CADA). The two organizations would work more closely together to serve victims while maintaining their separate responsibilities and protecting the victim's right to confidential communications.
The goal is straightforward: Better cooperation, stronger victim support, and a more effective criminal justice system without sacrificing the trust and confidentiality that victims need.
Two Organizations With Different but Complementary Responsibilities
The Island County Prosecuting Attorney's Office represents the public in criminal proceedings. Prosecutors review evidence, determine whether criminal charges are appropriate, present cases in court, and seek outcomes consistent with the law and public safety.
CADA is an independent nonprofit organization that provides support and advocacy for people affected by domestic violence and related abuse. CADA advocates help survivors understand their choices, develop safety plans, identify available resources, and navigate difficult circumstances. Their role is not to build criminal cases or persuade victims to cooperate with prosecutors. Their responsibility is to support the people they serve.
Both organizations contribute to community safety, but they do so in different ways. A successful partnership would recognize those differences rather than attempt to eliminate them.
What Would the Partnership Look Like?
If elected, I would seek to have the Prosecuting Attorney's Office and CADA establish a written Memorandum of Understanding allowing the two agencies to work together to serve victims:
• Prosecutors and the victim witness coordinators employed by the county could refer victims directly to CADA for confidential support and assistance.
• CADA advocates could help victims understand the court process, prepare for court appearances, and access available services.
• Both organizations could coordinate appropriate scheduling, referrals, and other practical matters.
• Advocates could potentially work at designated times within or near prosecutor facilities, making assistance easier to obtain.
• Both organizations could provide training to improve communication, understanding, and victim services.
Importantly, CADA advocates would remain employees of CADA, supervised by CADA, and accountable to their own organization's professional standards. They would not become investigators or employees of the Prosecuting Attorney's Office. This arrangement would allow the organizations to work together without merging their responsibilities.
Why Is Confidentiality So Important?
Confidentiality is one of the most important reasons to preserve CADA's independence. Imagine a person experiencing domestic violence who is uncertain about reporting the abuse. That individual may need to discuss threats, financial dependence, children, housing, or fears about participating in court proceedings. The person may also have concerns or experiences they are not ready to share with law enforcement. If victims believe that everything they tell an advocate will automatically be passed to prosecutors, they may be reluctant to seek help or speak openly.
Washington law recognizes the importance of confidential relationships between victims and qualifying community-based domestic violence advocates. These protections are different from those that generally apply to advocates employed by prosecutors or law enforcement agencies. Under the proposed partnership, CADA would continue to operate independently, maintain its own confidential records, and protect communications in accordance with Washington law.
Information would not automatically pass from CADA to prosecutors simply because the organizations have entered into an agreement. Victims could authorize appropriate information sharing when they choose, subject to applicable law. Legal exceptions and disclosure requirements would still apply. The essential promise is that working together would not mean giving prosecutors unrestricted access to what victims tell CADA advocates.
How Would Victims Benefit?
A well-designed partnership could make the criminal justice system less confusing and more accessible. Victims who come into contact with the Prosecuting Attorney's Office could be connected more quickly with CADA. Instead of having to identify services on their own, they could receive a direct referral to someone who can explain available assistance. Ideally, Police Officers and Sheriff Deputies would help victims contact CADA advocates at the time of the assault to provide immediate help.
Criminal proceedings can be intimidating. Advocates could help victims understand court terminology, hearing schedules, their rights, and what to expect as a case moves forward. While it is true that the Prosecutor's Office currently has in-house victim advocates, many victims are unwilling to work directly with the Prosecutor's Office due to fear of retaliation.
Victims sometimes interact with numerous agencies and professionals. Better coordination could reduce unnecessary confusion, repeated referrals, and gaps in communication.
Knowing that confidential advocacy remains available independently of the prosecution could make it easier for victims to ask questions, discuss concerns, and consider their options. They would not have to agree to participate in a prosecution to receive CADA's services. Their access to support would not depend upon whether criminal charges are filed or how a case is resolved.
How Could the Prosecutor's Office Benefit?
Prosecutors have demanding responsibilities. They must evaluate evidence, meet legal deadlines, communicate with witnesses, and make decisions that affect public safety. Victims frequently have important needs that extend beyond the prosecutor's legal responsibilities. A coordinated relationship with CADA could help ensure those needs receive appropriate attention. For example, when a victim needs assistance with emergency housing, safety planning, or community resources, prosecutors could connect that individual with trained advocates rather than attempting to provide services outside their primary expertise.
A victim who receives consistent support may feel better equipped to make informed decisions about participating in the criminal justice process. This does not mean that advocacy guarantees greater cooperation, convictions, or particular outcomes. Prosecutors would remain responsible for independently evaluating evidence and making legally appropriate decisions.
The potential benefit is a more coordinated process in which prosecutors can concentrate on their legal responsibilities while victims have access to independent support.
How Would Island County Benefit?
The advantages of this approach could extend beyond individual victims and criminal cases. Residents could have a clearer path to obtaining assistance when domestic violence or related abuse occurs. Rather than creating an entirely new county advocacy organization, the partnership could build upon CADA's existing expertise, community relationships, and services. A formal agreement would establish clear expectations for cooperation and accountability, reducing the risk of confusion about each organization's role.
The community benefits when residents believe they can seek help without unnecessarily surrendering their privacy or personal choices. Timely referrals, effective safety planning, and better access to services may help address risks facing victims and their families. These are potential benefits, not guaranteed outcomes. The goal is to establish practical ways to evaluate whether the partnership is improving access to services, coordination, and victim experiences.
Would This Arrangement Cost Taxpayers More?
A partnership does not necessarily require the creation of a new county department or the hiring of additional county employees. CADA already has an independent organizational structure and experience providing victim services. A cooperative agreement could begin with improved referral procedures, communication, training, and coordination using existing resources.
What Would Protect CADA's Independence?
CADA would retain its independence and responsibility for hiring, training, supervising, and directing its advocates. It would maintain separate confidential client records and determine how its advocacy services are provided. CADA would not change — only its relationship with the Prosecutor's Office would be improved. Prosecutors would retain full authority over charging decisions, plea negotiations, court proceedings, and other prosecutorial responsibilities. Neither organization would direct the other's core professional decisions.
Washington law provides specific confidentiality and privilege protections for qualifying community-based domestic violence advocates. The relationship would be designed to preserve those protections, but the agreement itself could not create new legal privileges or override lawful disclosure obligations.
Conclusion
Island County does not have to choose between effective criminal prosecution and independent, confidential victim advocacy. Both are important. The Prosecuting Attorney's Office has a responsibility to pursue justice and protect the public. CADA has a responsibility to provide independent support to people experiencing abuse. A carefully structured partnership could allow each organization to perform its responsibilities more effectively while respecting the boundaries that make both organizations valuable. This would not place CADA under the control of the prosecutor, require victims to cooperate with law enforcement, or permit unrestricted sharing of confidential information. It would establish a dependable working relationship that makes it easier for victims to obtain help and for the criminal justice system to respond appropriately.
Policy Statement
Early Intervention and Prosecution as a Strategy for Community Safety
Effective prosecution is not measured solely by the severity of the offenses charged or the length of sentences imposed. It should also be measured by the crimes prevented, the victims protected, and the opportunities created to interrupt patterns of criminal behavior before they escalate into serious violence.
The consistent and timely prosecution of lower-level offenses provides one of the earliest and most important opportunities to improve community safety. These cases often reveal patterns of behavior that, if left unaddressed, can lead to increasingly serious offenses. Domestic violence, stalking, threats, harassment, and repeated assaults are particularly important examples of conduct where early intervention can make a meaningful difference.
Washington State's Domestic Violence Fatality Review reports have repeatedly identified missed opportunities for intervention before fatal violence occurred. Their recommendations emphasize the importance of recognizing escalating behavior, improving coordination among criminal justice agencies, connecting victims with advocacy and safety resources, and providing appropriate intervention for offenders.
Prosecution creates an opportunity to bring these resources together. By pursuing appropriate charges supported by the evidence, prosecutors can seek accountability while also advocating for meaningful conditions of release, treatment, behavioral intervention, supervision, and other measures designed to reduce the risk of future offenses. At the same time, early involvement in the criminal justice process can connect victims with advocacy, safety planning, protection orders, and community services that might otherwise remain inaccessible.
Treatment and Accountability Are Complementary
Treatment and accountability are not competing objectives. They are complementary tools for preventing future crime. When properly matched to an individual's behavior and risk factors, evidence-based intervention can address underlying problems while maintaining consequences for continued criminal conduct.
A prosecution strategy focused primarily on responding to serious violent offenses after they occur misses important opportunities to prevent those crimes in the first place. Although not every offense will escalate into violence, repeated lower-level offenses can provide critical warning signs and opportunities for effective intervention.
The Public Interest
The public interest is therefore best served by a prosecution policy that takes lower-level offenses seriously, evaluates patterns of behavior, prioritizes victim safety, and uses the full range of available legal and community resources to prevent further harm.
The Ultimate Goal
The ultimate goal of prosecution should not simply be to punish violence after it occurs, but to use every appropriate opportunity to prevent violence before it occurs. A justice system that intervenes early, holds offenders accountable, supports victims, and promotes effective treatment has greater opportunities to reduce repeat offending, prevent serious violence, and build a safer community.
Policy Statement
The Coming Public Defense Crisis and What Prosecutors Can Do
Washington's Supreme Court has adopted new rules that will substantially reduce the number of criminal cases public defenders can handle. The changes are being phased in over ten years, with full implementation scheduled for 2036. Over the next 10 years, public defender caseloads will be reduced to roughly one-third of their current levels. The goal is reasonable: give defense attorneys enough time to properly represent people accused of crimes.
Under the old rules, a full-time public defender could generally handle up to 150 felony cases per year. Under the new rules, that limit drops to 47 felony case credits. The new system also accounts for the complexity of cases. In simple terms, handling the same number of criminal cases could eventually require roughly three times as many defense attorneys.
The most obvious answer to this problem is to simply hire more public defenders. But where will those additional attorneys come from and who will pay for them becomes the big question. For a smaller county like Island County, finding and funding enough qualified attorneys will be difficult if not impossible.
If prosecutors continue filing cases at today's rates but there aren't enough defense attorneys available, several problems are foreseeable. First, criminal cases could take much longer to reach trial or resolution. Prosecutors could face increasing pressure to reduce charges, negotiate settlements, or dismiss cases. Second, the county could need substantially more money for public defense, even if the number of criminal cases stays the same. A third possibility is that limited resources could force greater attention toward serious crimes, while lower-level offenses receive less attention. None of these outcomes is guaranteed. But without sufficient additional defense attorneys or changes in how cases are handled, the pressure on the system is likely to grow.
What the Prosecutor's Office Can Do
The Island County Prosecutor's Office cannot change the Supreme Court's rules. But it does control important decisions about which charges to file, when to file them, and how to pursue cases. These decisions will become increasingly important as public defense capacity changes.
One issue worth examining is what the Prosecutor's Office can do to prepare for this crisis and manage the impacts while continuing to effectively prosecute crimes and improve community safety. Institutional delays caused by the shortage of defense attorneys will be charged to the state, increasing the pressure to resolve cases that could be dismissed due to speedy trial issues. If the county does not have the financial resources to hire three times the number of public defenders that they currently have, the choice comes down to two alternatives: allow the system to become overwhelmed without any control, or reduce the number of cases that qualify for a public defender. Generally, a defendant only has a right to a public defender if they face jail time.
Addressing the Crisis Now
I believe if we start addressing this crisis now, we will be able to minimize some of the damage in the future. Through the use of treatment courts — which I support in order to address the underlying causes of crime such as addiction and mental health — and alternative prosecution strategies such as pre-charge diversion programs, offenders could be held accountable without having their case assigned to a public defender.
This is a question that has been debated at the Supreme Court and State Bar without a fully satisfactory answer being decided on yet. Even without that final answer being determined at this point, one thing is clear: to move us toward a solution, the Prosecutor's Office will need forward-focused leadership that is prepared to take proactive steps to address the situation now and in the coming years.
Policy Statement
Complete Initial Charging
Because of the discretion that a prosecutor has when deciding what charges to bring against a person, they hold a great amount of power in the judicial process and that power must be exercised with a commitment to fairness and justice. That decision can determine whether someone is facing a misdemeanor or a felony, whether they remain in the community while a case is pending, what kind of plea offer makes sense, and what the consequences may be if the case goes to trial.
With that power comes a responsibility to make charging decisions based on the evidence and the interests of justice. If the evidence supports a charge, and the prosecutor believes that offense is serious enough that it should be prosecuted, it should, as a matter of general process, be charged at the beginning of the case. Prosecutors should not keep known charges in reserve so they can be added later if plea negotiations fail.
That does not mean charging every offense that can possibly be charged. Prosecutors also have a responsibility not to overcharge. There are cases where several statutes might technically apply to the same conduct. There are charges that may be supported by probable cause but add little to the fair resolution of the case. There are also situations where the interests of justice call for restraint. Good prosecutors are expected to exercise judgment.
But that judgment should be exercised when the charging decision is made. If the evidence supports a felony and the prosecutor believes the conduct warrants felony prosecution, charge the felony. If the prosecutor concludes that the case should be prosecuted as a misdemeanor, charge the misdemeanor.
What concerns me is a different situation: a misdemeanor is filed, the case is worked for months, the evidence is known, discovery is exchanged, attorneys spend time negotiating a resolution, and then negotiations fail. The same conduct is then recharged as a felony even though the facts supporting the felony were known when the misdemeanor was originally filed. Nothing about the evidence changed. What changed was that the defendant did not accept the proposed resolution. I do not believe that is how charging authority should ordinarily be exercised.
A criminal charge is more than a negotiating position. It is an exercise of the authority of the State. Prosecutors represent the public, and their job is not simply to win cases or obtain guilty pleas. Their responsibility is to seek justice. The charging decision should reflect the prosecutor's considered judgment about what the evidence proves and what charges are appropriate — not what charges might provide useful leverage later.
There may, of course, be legitimate reasons to add charges after a case has been filed. Investigations continue. New witnesses come forward. Forensic testing produces results. Additional victims may be identified. Evidence that initially appeared unreliable may be corroborated. When new information materially changes the case, prosecutors must be able to respond to it; that is very different from amending a charge based entirely on information the prosecutor already had.
People Should Know What the Case Is
There is another practical reason for this policy: people make important decisions based on the charges that have actually been filed.
A defendant deciding whether to accept a plea offer needs to know what the State believes the case really is. A person cannot rationally evaluate a proposed resolution if part of the prosecution is being held in reserve.
Victims need that information too. Victims often look at the charges that are filed with a critical eye, looking for justice. To charge a misdemeanor when a felony is appropriate minimizes the harm done. A victim evaluating a proposed plea agreement should know the full extent of the criminal conduct the prosecutor believes can and should be proved. Victims should not spend months believing the State has determined that a case is appropriately prosecuted as a misdemeanor only to discover later that prosecutors believed a felony charge was justified all along.
The same is true for the public. Criminal charges are public records. They are the State's formal statement about what it alleges occurred. Those records should give the public an accurate picture of the prosecution. If we believe a felony should be prosecuted, the record should say so. If we believe a misdemeanor is the appropriate charge, that should mean something as well.
It Also Makes the Courts Work Better
Complete charging is not only about fairness. It is good case management. Once a case is filed, people start working on it. Defense attorneys investigate it. Prosecutors review evidence and speak with witnesses. Judges make release decisions and establish schedules. Discovery is exchanged. Motions are researched and filed. Victims and witnesses make plans around court dates. Trial time is reserved.
When the basic nature of the case changes months later based on information that was available from the beginning, some of that work has to be done again. A felony may involve different potential penalties, different motions, different defense preparation, and different decisions about experts or investigation. Court dates may have to be continued. Witnesses and victims may have to wait longer for a resolution. Judges have to find additional time on already crowded calendars. That is unnecessary when the information supporting the charge was available from the outset.
Better Information Produces Better Plea Decisions
I support plea bargaining. It is an essential part of our criminal justice system, and a reasonable plea agreement can serve defendants, victims, courts, and the public better than a trial. But plea bargaining works best when everyone understands what is actually being negotiated.
The prosecutor should be able to say: these are the charges the evidence supports, this is how we evaluate the case, and this is the resolution we believe is fair. The defendant and defense attorney can then evaluate that offer knowing what the State's case actually is. Victims can give their views knowing what conduct is being resolved. And the court can evaluate the eventual agreement with a clearer understanding of the case.
I believe that produces better plea agreements and more durable resolutions. It also reduces the concern that declining an offer may cause the accusation itself to become more serious even though nothing about the underlying evidence has changed.
The Policy I Would Follow
As Prosecuting Attorney, I would expect charging attorneys to make a careful assessment of the evidence before filing a case.
Don't overcharge. Don't file counts simply because they are available. Don't use the threat of unnecessary charges to force a plea.
But once we determine that an offense is supported by the evidence and is serious enough that justice requires us to prosecute it, charge it. If genuinely new evidence later changes the case, we will change the charges when appropriate. We should never be afraid to respond to new facts.
What we should not do is treat an already-known felony as something to keep in our back pocket while prosecuting a misdemeanor, only to bring out the felony months later because negotiations did not produce the result we wanted.
Prosecutorial discretion is necessary. So is restraint. And so is consistency. Defendants should know what they are accused of. Victims should know what the State intends to prosecute. Judges should know what case they are being asked to manage. And the public record should accurately reflect the prosecutor's assessment of the evidence.
That is how I would use the charging authority entrusted to the Prosecuting Attorney's Office.
Learn more about Andrew Scott
Read his full biography, career history, and voter pamphlet statement.