Experience and Teamwork

I grew up in Springfield and chose to raise my family here. This is my home and I am committed to the quality of life in Greene County. For fourteen years, as an assistant prosecutor, I have demonstrated that commitment by preserving and improving public safety in Greene County. As your elected prosecutor, I will continue to honor that commitment. My experience as an assistant prosecutor and my experience as a twice-deployed Missouri Army National Guard officer give me the legal and leadership skills to do just that.

This experience is especially important in these lean budget times. I continually improvise, adapt and overcome to ensure that we take full advantage of scarce resources. One example is restructuring the office by eliminating a supervisory attorney position and replacing it with a less expensive front-line prosecutor. This move both saved money and increased our focus on seeking justice in the courtroom. I also implemented a paperless file system that is already yielding benefits in efficiency and effectiveness.

Though understaffed, the Greene County Prosecutors office remains a complex organization. Because of my experience, I know the duties of each of our valued staff members. This enables me to evaluate those duties and to work with the staff to ensure that their duties are assigned to maximize effectiveness and efficiency, even in the face of positions lost because of budget cuts. The staff is an outstanding group and operates as a dedicated and motivated problem solving team.

Our current assistant prosecutors are the finest group I have worked with over the past fourteen years. The least experienced of our senior trial attorneys has over five years experience. Collectively our senior trial attorneys represent over 75 years of experience prosecuting criminals. Mentoring and leading this fine team of attorneys has been and will remain one of my most important duties and greatest joys. Mentorship and empowerment of assistant prosecutors has been a key to the success of the office. Last year they won 29 of 30 jury trials and we were able to involve 19 of 22 available prosecutors in those trials. I am extremely proud of them.

I will ensure that we remain focused on the aggressive prosecution of dangerous and career criminals including those who abuse children. To do so, we will continue to recruit, develop and retain the best prosecutors possible. We will continue to utilize alternative sentencing programs such as Drug Court, DWI Court, Mental Health Court, and the Restorative Justice Program to fast track nonviolent cases preserving judicial resources for the most serious cases.

Finally, we will maintain our outstanding relationship with local law enforcement agencies. We will do so, in part, by continuing to work with investigating officers to review all 24-hour arrests as a team. I believe this longstanding team approach led the Springfield Police Sergeants League and distinguished lawmen, Jim Arnott, Jack Merritt, Lynn Rowe and Darrell Moore to endorse me. Please join them on August 3rd by voting for me, Dan Patterson.

(The above is the text of my letter to the editor published in the Springfield News-Leader on July 29, 2010)