By QUINTON SMITH/YachatsNews.com
Fresh out of law school and eager to get legal experience, Michelle Branam took a three-month position in the Wasco County district attorney’s office in 2004.
She got little pay that spring, but the district attorney offered free housing in migrant quarters in his parents’ cherry orchard.
One case stuck with Branam. A child had been killed in a drunken driving accident by a family friend. She worked with the parents, advising them and helping them through the court process. When it was finished, Branam – who had been a county youth caseworker in Ohio for three years – told herself “I could absolutely do this.”
“I had zero criminal law. I had no idea how to prosecute a case,” she told YachatsNews.com in an interview this week. “But this was interesting work.”
Now after 15 years in the Lincoln County District Attorney’s office including the last 4½ as district attorney, she is resigning Wednesday, Sept. 11 to take a job with the Oregon Department of Justice representing the state Department of Human Resources, its staff and affected juveniles in the court system.
It is a position that the Justice Department had been staffing from its Salem offices, at the urging three years ago from Branam to beef up its legal support for juveniles in Lincoln County. As the agency worked to make the position permanent, it approached Branam about the job.
“They created the position,” she said. “They knew my work and they knew my reputation.
“I’ve been here since 2004 and people have seen me evolve from this Baby D.A. into the chief prosecutor,” said Branam, 48. “Every day I show up and make the best decision I can with the information I have.”
The appointment process
Branam had been in the Lincoln County DA’s office for 10 years and the chief deputy district attorney for three months when then-district attorney Rob Bovett resigned in January 2014 to go to work for the Association of Oregon Counties. Gov. John Kitzhaber appointed Branam to fill Bovett’s term and she was elected without opposition to four-year terms in 2014 and 2018.
Now it’s up to Gov. Kate Brown to determine who will be the next Lincoln County district attorney. Normally an elected position, district attorneys are frequently appointed in more rural counties after incumbent district attorneys retire mid-term or move to other jobs. Already this year the governor has appointed a district attorney for Lake County and is seeking applications for the same job in Josephine County.
Whoever is appointed will have to stand for election in November.
With a mid-term resignation, Oregon Attorney General Ellen Rosenblum names an interim district attorney until the governor appoints one or there is an election.
Rosenblum has named Christian Stringer, an attorney with the Oregon Department of Justice, as interim district attorney. Stringer spent 12 years in the Benton County District Attorney’s office, left in 2014 to become an U.S. Attorney in the Virgin Islands before joining the state agency.
The governor’s office will solicit applications through a detailed 10-page form and could use a local committee to help make recommendations and then appoint a district attorney. But Brown can also decline to make an appointment and let people run for the open seat next November. The deadline for applications is Sept. 25.
Branam expects “several” of the 10 other attorneys in her office and still others outside the office will apply.
“I’ve heard lots of interest in this job,” she said. “It’s such an important position. You set the tone for the quality of life here.”
The district attorney has a yearly budget of nearly $3 million and supervises a staff of 33. The state sets the DA’s salary is $106,000 a year; Lincoln County adds another $17,000.
The governor is also seeking applications to fill a vacancy on the three-member Lincoln County circuit court after the recent retirement of Judge Paulette Sanders.
The daily work
Branam came to Lincoln County and started working on juvenile cases and misdemeanors, then progressing to adult crimes, felonies, narcotics, wildlife cases – in 2013 she was named prosecutor of the year by the Oregon Department of Fish and Wildlife and Oregon Sportsmen’s Coalition – and then to the county’s major crimes team.
During her 4½ years as district attorney, she points to improved office efficiencies, expanded child support enforcement, giving every child who has witnessed domestic violence the opportunity to be forensically interviewed in a safe location, acquired grants, assisted in programming and support for the Lincoln County drug court, and begun a program designed to divert low-level drug offenders out of the criminal justice system.
“My focus has always been to make sure victims of crime are assisted through the criminal justice system with as much information and support as possible,” Branam said in a statement announcing her resignation. “Whether you are a criminal defendant or a crime victim, you meet the district attorney’s office staff on one of your worst days. We have an obligation to take that responsibility seriously.”
Branam says she will miss the office staff; in her new job she will be working as a solo attorney starting Sept. 23.
“I feel like the DA’s office is my family,” she said. “My regrets are that I’m not going to be part of that team. They come to work every day and deal with incredible problems. It’s going to be a great place to work for the new DA.”
But Branam says she will relish working closer with people and problems with fewer administrative duties.
“In this job as district attorney I’m really removed from people … unable to drill down into a specific area,” said Branam, who has a partner and sons ages 7 and 9. “I have no intention of walking away from the community. I really want to make sure I’m embedded here.”