2009 Annual Report - Belknap County

The Grand Jury process is used primarily for the review of indictments by a group
of peers, citizens of the County, to insure that there is probable cause to implement
the criminal process against an individual in the Superior Court. The indictment,
itself, is only the mechanism to implement the process.
Although the Grand Jury process is primarily utilized for the purposes of that
above review, the process is also utilized to review and to assist investigations,
which may be ongoing. The County Attorney’s office did utilize that investigative
authority during the year 2009.
The Office returned two more successful prosecutions for Sale of a Narcotic Drug
with Death Resulting. The case involved two defendants and resulted in lengthy
prison terms for the two defendants. These cases are tragic and challenging legally.
The cases’ resolutions spoke firmly about the County’s and the communities’
concerns about drug abuse and, particularly, illegal methadone usage. The
prosecution’s cases were greatly aided by the County’s alliance with local jurisdictions
in the Methadone Task Force.
The County Attorney’s Office is constantly available to the State Medical Examiners
for consults on untimely deaths. The County Attorney was consulted
directly on 62 occasions. Of central issue in these notices, is whether or not there
is suspicion surrounding the passing of an individual. An extraordinary spike has
been observed in the untimely deaths of young people in our communities. Many
of these passings were causally related to drug overdoses. There has been a need
to amend our investigative approaches to these untimely deaths from the outset.
What had previously been viewed as plainly untimely, the scenes now may, in
deed, be crime scenes and need to be preserved for continued investigation.
The Office also handled 109 Probation Violations. Although the Probation Officers
bring the violations, the Office represents the Probation Officers in the litigation.
The foundations of the violations are generated by the actions of defendants
who have been placed on Probation following the dispositions of their cases in
court. There is a wide range of events which may cause these violations to be
presented to the Court - further criminal behaviors by the Defendant, failures of
the Defendants to maintain their rehabilitative efforts, etc.
The Office handled 14 misdemeanor appeals. The criminal justice system in New
Hampshire accords a defendant an opportunity to a jury trial upon a finding of
guilty in the District Court as a result of a bench trial.
Belknap County Commissioners
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