Everybody loves Mikey, cont'd

Portland's daily newspaper (sort of) takes a swipe at the Multnomah County district attorney, Mike Schmidt, today. A big swipe, in many many many many words, about how how easy it is to get away with hate crimes under his watch.

The article also casts the police and the courts in an unflattering light. But they're not up for re-election next year. Mikey is. And he comes away looking by far the worst.

An analysis by The Oregonian/OregonLive found an inconsistent handling of hate crime prosecutions primarily since the departure of its biggest advocate, deputy district attorney BJ Park. He said he resigned from the Multnomah County DA’s Office in early 2022 in part over disagreements with Schmidt and his senior management over what he saw as a decreasing emphasis on the prosecution of hate crimes. Park is one of more than 30 deputy district attorneys — roughly one-third of the lawyers in the office — who’ve left their jobs for various reasons since Schmidt became district attorney in 2020.

Park used to be assigned to most hate crime cases in the office or offered guidance to colleagues who were. Since his departure, a prosecutor with far less experience has been assigned part-time to the role....

The Oregonian/OregonLive found that in the year before Schmidt became DA, every hate crime case that police referred to prosecutors resulted in some sort of criminal charge filed — even if it wasn’t charged as a hate crime, though it almost always was. In 2022, well into Schmidt’s term, one in four cases didn’t result in any sort of criminal charge.

We have 507 days left of Mikey as our county prosecutor. Dear Lord, please, not a day more.