Official at El Paso district attorney’s office weighs in on ongoing cases

EL PASO, Texas -- An official who works at the El Paso district attorney's office is weighing in on the ongoing case dismissals.

From August to September, close to 900 cases were dismissed after the DA's office didn't indict them within a certain time frame.

On Monday, ABC-7 learned the county public defender's office has motioned to dismiss another 400 criminal cases because of inaction. This coming Wednesday, Oct. 18, a judge will make the final decision on whether or not to dismiss the cases.

The District Attorney's office can still refile charges against any cases that are dismissed. In most cases, they have between 2 and 10 years to file a charge after dismissal.

ABC-7 spoke with Douglas Tiemann, the chief of the intake division of the district attorney's office, about how many cases have been refiled so far.

Tiemann wasn't able to provide specifics.

"I don’t have an actual number. They are proceeding, we are still reviewing them. Respectfully, I am not working on statistics. I am trying to work to get through these cases processed and filed," he said.

He said staff members are working long nights and even weekends to address these cases.

Tiemann also talked about the personnel who are looking at the cases.

"We have three staff members who manually re-entering the docket and going through and looking for all of the details associated with all of those cases," Tiemann said.

Despite not being able to provide an exact number, he assures the El Paso community they are working on it.

"The best I can tell you is that they are moving forward and sometime I will be able to give some numbers in that. I just haven’t gotten the opportunity to do that at the moment. There’s awfully a lot of cases moving through the office."

He said District Attorney Yvonne Rosales has asked for more people to get hired, but he said looking for employees is an issue.

Tiemann also said they are doing the best with what they have.

"We have had staff working late at night and early morning already. We have plans for them to be here this weekend, we have staff that is dedicated that we are making sure we are seeking justice and looking out for the safety of El Paso," he said.

The official also said other people from the county are assisting.

"There are a lot of people that are doing this. It’s not just the district attorney’s office. We have staff members throughout the county, county clerk’s office, the district clerk’s office, the jail, the probation department, CJC, jail magistrates. Their staff has been heavily involved in this, so we have people throughout the county who are supporting these efforts," he said.

Kelli Childress, the public defender, previously told us her office has identified 800 additional cases that are eligible for dismissal, and there are about 1,200 cases that are in an "unfiled" status, meaning they have not been indicted, but the prosecutor still has time to file charges.