I remember very well the staffing shortages of a few years ago when it seemed like every restaurant had only half its waitstaff and the Walmart would only have a couple registers open because they couldn't hire anybody.
But this right here is on another level:
An Indiana judge dismissed a murder trial because of a 'staffing crisis' at the prosecutor's office - as the victim's family still waits for justice 20 years after the killing.
Kevin Maddox, accused of fatally shooting 20-year-old Chad Rouse during a 2006 botched robbery, was released from jail after Howard County Superior Court Judge William Menges abruptly dismissed the case Tuesday just as it was set to kick off.
Menges' order cited the Howard County Prosecutor's office's hectic trial schedule, 'staffing crisis' and the fact it was 'overburdened with pretrial motions on the eve of trial.'
"Hectic schedule," "staffing crisis," "overburdened."
Is this how things are going now in the United States? A man is on trial for cold-blooded murder and the prosecutor's office is like...
The suspect, Kevin Maddox, "was charged alongside Amber Brigham in the fatal shooting of Chad Rouse on Nov. 15, 2006" during a robbery attempt.
Suspects in the case had gone unidentified until 2023, when Maddox and Brigham were arrested, Maddox on murder and robbery charges and Brigham on conspiracy charges.
Brigham's case "was slated to go to trial in January but it was pushed back multiple times before ultimately getting dismissed on April 7 by Judge Blake Dahl."
Both cases were dismissed "without prejudice," meaning they can be brought again at a later date.
A prosecuting official, meanwhile, told media that the problem is even larger than most people realize:
'[W]e're at a tipping point that I think most people in the community are not aware of and have no, you know, capacity for understanding the amount, the sheer amount of the workload that is on each deputy prosecutor in their county.'
Not a good sign, Indiana.
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