PORTLAND, Ore. (KOIN) – Overwhelmingly elected by voters, Mike Schmidt has served as Multnomah County District Attorney since August 2020 — from taking office in the middle of Portland’s 2020 protests to now launching a drug treatment-style court.
Schmidt took office several months early after he was appointed by then-governor Kate Brown to replace the retiring Rod Underhill.
With three years as district attorney under his belt, Schmidt has enacted a number of reforms — including the Strategic Treatment and Engagement Program for some Measure 11 offenders, which began in January 2023.
“STEP court is what you call a drug treatment court and Oregon is actually a pioneer of the treatment courts in the whole country,” Schmidt explained.
“What you’re looking at is a collaborative team. You have the probation officer, the judge, prosecutor, defense attorney and their clinician team that are working on the treatment side of things and they work together to come up with a plan to help make sure that people are successful in our community,” He added.
Schmidt said while his office is prosecuting different crimes, they look for an intervention that’s more likely to get the best outcome, which in some cases, may be treatment court or incarceration.
He also says treatment court is a proven intervention to keep communities safe.
“People who come out of prison are committing new crimes at a rate of 50 or 60%. People coming out of treatment courts, it’s less than that,” Schmidt said.
“STEP Court is specifically designed to work on two types of crimes that we’ve targeted — assaults and robberies — which are Measure 11 offenses. We chose those two crimes because in Multnomah County, the number of people that we prosecute for assault and robberies that are young Black men, account for 25% of the people we’re prosecuting.”
The district attorney pointed out that 18 to 35-year-old Black men do not account for 25% of the county’s population. Instead, Schmidt says they make up one to 1.5% of the county’s population.
“We saw a lot of disparity in who was being convicted and sent to prison on those charges. Yet, we know from a study statewide, that 70% of the people who are charged with Measure 11 crimes, this might be their first felony offense ever,” Schmidt said.
“Measure 11 is sort of a one-strike and you’re out, kind of law,” Schmidt explained. “So, we put together this treatment court and said, ‘Maybe we can keep people in our community and get better results than we would if we sent them to prison’ and that’s what we’re seeing.”
The STEP court program, Schmidt says, does not undermine voters’ intent on passing Measure 11.
“First of all, I think it’s widely expected that when you elect a district attorney, it’s for them to exercise their discretion. If we weren’t supposed to exercise discretion, you could have a robot in the seat,” Schmidt said.
Mike Schmidt came into office in the midst of Portland’s 2020 protests. He made the call to not prosecute hundreds of people who were arrested during the demonstrations.
“The decision was correct. I would’ve made the same decision because you’ve got to look at who it was that the policy was aimed at not prosecuting. And what we’re mainly talking about was a crime called interfering with a police officer, which was essentially a situation where police officers would say ‘Go home,’ and then people would say ‘No, I’m not going to go home,’” Schmidt explained.
He went on to point out that Multnomah County jurors overwhelmingly acquit people who were accused of crimes his office did not prosecute during the protest — saying it would have been a waste of resources to prosecute.
“The people that we were seeing charged with those crimes, they weren’t criminals, they weren’t career criminals that were going to go on to a life of crime,” Schmidt said.
“I’ve met students, chiropractors, teachers, community members who are there because if you remember at the time, a lot of folks were very righteously angry about the treatment of George Floyd in specific, but Black people in general by police officers,” he added.
“I felt like using the system, that they were essentially saying needed to change, to silence their voices would not help the situation at all.”
Schmidt says he did, however, prosecute those who did damage or assaulted police officers and noted his office is prosecuting a police officer for assaulting a protestor.
He noted, “It doesn’t matter your politics or ideology. We prosecuted people on the so-called right and on the so-called left for damage, destruction and injuring people.”
In addition to the 2020 protests, the district attorney is now seeing a public defender shortage.
“It is severe,” Schmidt, said, explaining that his office saw the first case dismissed around February 2022.
“I thought to myself, ‘OK, this is a pandemic, you know, this will come back online and then it didn’t and then it got worse,” Schmidt said. “It is a very hard conversation that my deputy DAs, myself, sometimes victim advocates, have to have with victims in our community or witnesses who are frustrated.”
“Constitutionally, people are absolutely entitled, and they should have representation. That’s a hard conversation to have with the victim or witness as they’re frustrated because they want accountability and justice. So do I,” Schmidt said.
Amid the severe shortage, Schmidt says he’s looking to the Oregon legislature to address the shortage.
In January 2023, Oregon House Speaker Dan Rayfield told KOIN 6 News lawmakers were beginning the process to address the shortage at the state level.
Rayfield added that the legislature worked with Oregon’s executive and judicial branches to form a package for the upcoming legislative session to address the crisis — stating that it will be included in a legislative package.
As Schmidt is hopeful lawmakers will pass legislation resolving the issue, he also has re-election on his mind in 2024.
“It’s absolutely a focus of mine that people are held accountable, and I think accountability is the key word. When people are talking about tough on crime, a lot of times are thinking about prison,” Schmidt said.
He added, “I think we have to be smarter on crime. The United States is the most incarcerated nation in the entire world. We’re not the safest, right? We should use our resources better, more strategically and this is a sentiment from the left and the right, that we can do better by being smarter on crime.”