By Liz Nass
Gongwer News Service
Lake County saw a new county prosecutor appointed last month, but that left Luce County without one.
Officials say it’s just another signifier of the looming prosecutor shortage.
Thomas Evans was appointed to fill the open role in Lake County Prosecutor’s Office and was sworn in last month.
The move filled the vacant position in Lake County but came with a complication: Evans was the Luce County prosecutor, so that county is now facing its own vacancy.
Attorney General Dana Nessel said her office would begin managing and supporting prosecutorial functions in Luce County, which it was doing in Lake County, too.
“Protecting public safety and securing justice requires uninterrupted prosecution,” Nessel said in a statement when her office took over the duties. “I am relieved that the new state budget gives my office the resources needed to step in and support local prosecutor’s offices to maintain critical services when vacancies arise. We are committed to ensuring that the people of Luce County
experience no disruption during this transition period.”
The department has also helped with other vacancies like this in Houghton and Ontonagon counties.
These vacancies are not new, with previous reporting from Gongwer News Service showing a pattern of staffing loss in these offices, especially with assistant positions, creating a large backlog for new prosecutors even with the attorney general’s office aiding the counties (See Gongwer Michigan Report, July 15, 2025).
However, Chris Becker, president of the Prosecuting Attorneys Association of Michigan, said he is unaware of any other cases in his 30 years in prosecuting in the state where filling one vacancy left another office vacant.
At the lower level in the offices, Becker said staff moves all the time, and it usually affects the smaller counties.
Judge Robert Springstead in Newaygo County Circuit Court was one of the people charged with the appointment of a new Lake County prosecutor. He said his number one priority was finding a good fit for Lake County.
“I understand the attorney general's problem trying to stretch themselves across the state, filling vacancies, but my number one priority was to find a competent, capable prosecutor,” Springstead said.
Becker said it’s hard to think about other counties when hiring people for your own, and that’s where this competition really stems from.
Sen. Ed McBroom, R-Vulcan, said this issue is not unique to Luce County, which is in his district, and that the county is looking to beat this competition in an environment where a shortage of attorneys has become the norm, especially in the Upper Peninsula.
He said there’s a multitude of reasons: low pay compared to the private sector, untaxable land in the Upper Peninsula and a decline in population overall.
The difficulty in financing at the local level is also difficult for the counties, having to find a balance with inflation on other local government costs like health care and roads, while also staffing their prosecutor’s office.
Samantha Gibson, governmental affairs specialist for the Michigan Association of Counties, said when a county is short a prosecuting attorney, it creates a spiral of negative causes and effects for that office.
“The rest of the prosecuting staff is left with that caseload, right? So, you have higher caseloads per prosecutor, which, as you can imagine, would result in (being) overworked, and then inevitably turns into retention issues,” Gibson said.
She said pulling from one county to the next exemplifies the issue of retention and recruitment across the prosecutorial field but also creates competition between county commissioners who feel they may have to be in a battle of who can pay more than the next county over.
Gibson pointed toward the indirect effect of the Michigan Indigent Defense Commission and their payment structure, funded by the state to pull more lawyers into public defense.
Counties pay for their prosecutor’s office budgets while state dollars are used to pay commission attorneys, creating major concern in how to beat this funding competition among her association’s members, Gibson said.
She said the funding from the previous fiscal year and the recent budget passed for 15 eligible prosecutor’s officers was helpful, but one-time funding is “not enough to address the issue as a whole.”
Fifteen counties in Michigan share a fund of $17 million in the budget for their prosecutor’s office to reduce the caseload per attorney and raise assistant prosecutor salaries. The counties include Berrien, Calhoun, Crawford, Eaton, Genesee, Ingham, Jackson, Kalamazoo, Kalkaska, Kent, Luce, Muskegon, Saginaw, Schoolcraft and Washtenaw.
This was also in the 2024 fiscal year budget.
One other solution McBroom pointed towards was partnerships with universities to create law schools in the U.P. or just pre-law courses to get students in the area interested in the sector.
However, Becker said there’s fewer kids coming out of law school in general, and when they do, they have bills and loans they need to pay, and the starting salaries are just not enough, even in larger counties with a lot of staff like Wayne.
McBroom also said it’s all connected to the law enforcement shortage overall, including police in the mix.
“It is a very difficult business to be in right now when it comes to the tensions and the kind of aggressive position that some of the country has taken against law enforcement,” McBroom said.
“Well, prosecutors are part of that equation. So, there's absolutely pressures on those who are in law school to go a different direction.”
McBroom said this move of people choosing other counties and leaving vacancies in the wake is no different than people choosing another path for their own personal reasons, leading people away from places that cannot be competitive.
He said while he is appreciative of the attorney general stepping in to fill these gaps, it’s not ideal, saying each county deserves to be represented by someone who sought their support to be elected and had a race to speak to their beliefs, values and plans for the county rather than appointment.
Becker said he can’t believe the solution is “sustainable at all” or for any long period of time because the department has their own duties, and many times they must work remotely from Lansing, so there’s an inherent disconnect with the people in the county and the prosecutor’s office.
Gongwer News Service
Lake County saw a new county prosecutor appointed last month, but that left Luce County without one.
Officials say it’s just another signifier of the looming prosecutor shortage.
Thomas Evans was appointed to fill the open role in Lake County Prosecutor’s Office and was sworn in last month.
The move filled the vacant position in Lake County but came with a complication: Evans was the Luce County prosecutor, so that county is now facing its own vacancy.
Attorney General Dana Nessel said her office would begin managing and supporting prosecutorial functions in Luce County, which it was doing in Lake County, too.
“Protecting public safety and securing justice requires uninterrupted prosecution,” Nessel said in a statement when her office took over the duties. “I am relieved that the new state budget gives my office the resources needed to step in and support local prosecutor’s offices to maintain critical services when vacancies arise. We are committed to ensuring that the people of Luce County
experience no disruption during this transition period.”
The department has also helped with other vacancies like this in Houghton and Ontonagon counties.
These vacancies are not new, with previous reporting from Gongwer News Service showing a pattern of staffing loss in these offices, especially with assistant positions, creating a large backlog for new prosecutors even with the attorney general’s office aiding the counties (See Gongwer Michigan Report, July 15, 2025).
However, Chris Becker, president of the Prosecuting Attorneys Association of Michigan, said he is unaware of any other cases in his 30 years in prosecuting in the state where filling one vacancy left another office vacant.
At the lower level in the offices, Becker said staff moves all the time, and it usually affects the smaller counties.
Judge Robert Springstead in Newaygo County Circuit Court was one of the people charged with the appointment of a new Lake County prosecutor. He said his number one priority was finding a good fit for Lake County.
“I understand the attorney general's problem trying to stretch themselves across the state, filling vacancies, but my number one priority was to find a competent, capable prosecutor,” Springstead said.
Becker said it’s hard to think about other counties when hiring people for your own, and that’s where this competition really stems from.
Sen. Ed McBroom, R-Vulcan, said this issue is not unique to Luce County, which is in his district, and that the county is looking to beat this competition in an environment where a shortage of attorneys has become the norm, especially in the Upper Peninsula.
He said there’s a multitude of reasons: low pay compared to the private sector, untaxable land in the Upper Peninsula and a decline in population overall.
The difficulty in financing at the local level is also difficult for the counties, having to find a balance with inflation on other local government costs like health care and roads, while also staffing their prosecutor’s office.
Samantha Gibson, governmental affairs specialist for the Michigan Association of Counties, said when a county is short a prosecuting attorney, it creates a spiral of negative causes and effects for that office.
“The rest of the prosecuting staff is left with that caseload, right? So, you have higher caseloads per prosecutor, which, as you can imagine, would result in (being) overworked, and then inevitably turns into retention issues,” Gibson said.
She said pulling from one county to the next exemplifies the issue of retention and recruitment across the prosecutorial field but also creates competition between county commissioners who feel they may have to be in a battle of who can pay more than the next county over.
Gibson pointed toward the indirect effect of the Michigan Indigent Defense Commission and their payment structure, funded by the state to pull more lawyers into public defense.
Counties pay for their prosecutor’s office budgets while state dollars are used to pay commission attorneys, creating major concern in how to beat this funding competition among her association’s members, Gibson said.
She said the funding from the previous fiscal year and the recent budget passed for 15 eligible prosecutor’s officers was helpful, but one-time funding is “not enough to address the issue as a whole.”
Fifteen counties in Michigan share a fund of $17 million in the budget for their prosecutor’s office to reduce the caseload per attorney and raise assistant prosecutor salaries. The counties include Berrien, Calhoun, Crawford, Eaton, Genesee, Ingham, Jackson, Kalamazoo, Kalkaska, Kent, Luce, Muskegon, Saginaw, Schoolcraft and Washtenaw.
This was also in the 2024 fiscal year budget.
One other solution McBroom pointed towards was partnerships with universities to create law schools in the U.P. or just pre-law courses to get students in the area interested in the sector.
However, Becker said there’s fewer kids coming out of law school in general, and when they do, they have bills and loans they need to pay, and the starting salaries are just not enough, even in larger counties with a lot of staff like Wayne.
McBroom also said it’s all connected to the law enforcement shortage overall, including police in the mix.
“It is a very difficult business to be in right now when it comes to the tensions and the kind of aggressive position that some of the country has taken against law enforcement,” McBroom said.
“Well, prosecutors are part of that equation. So, there's absolutely pressures on those who are in law school to go a different direction.”
McBroom said this move of people choosing other counties and leaving vacancies in the wake is no different than people choosing another path for their own personal reasons, leading people away from places that cannot be competitive.
He said while he is appreciative of the attorney general stepping in to fill these gaps, it’s not ideal, saying each county deserves to be represented by someone who sought their support to be elected and had a race to speak to their beliefs, values and plans for the county rather than appointment.
Becker said he can’t believe the solution is “sustainable at all” or for any long period of time because the department has their own duties, and many times they must work remotely from Lansing, so there’s an inherent disconnect with the people in the county and the prosecutor’s office.
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