New DA to make changes in prosecutors

Mark Dupree
Mark Dupree

Newly elected Wyandotte County District Attorney Mark Dupree this week announced changes to prosecutors working in the DA’s office.

Dupree announced a new chief deputy attorney, Damon Mitchell, who is a native of Kansas City, Kan.

Dupree defeated DA Jerome Gorman in the Democratic primary election in August, and was unopposed in the general election.

Dupree’s campaign manager, Shanelle Dupree, confirmed that six current attorneys and two staff members in the DA’s office will not be coming back in January.

Forty-nine of the 57 persons who currently work in the DA’s office will be returning, she added.

She said Dupree held interviews for all current staff wishing to work in the office in 2017. Six attorneys were not offered a position, and one of those is retiring, she said.

She said although new administrations sometimes change staffs completely without interviews, Dupree gave everyone there the opportunity to interview.

“He’s giving those individuals not to be working in the administration 60 days so they can be looking for other employment,” she said.

She added there have been conversations with the Unified Government human resources staff, to ask for help to place the individuals.

Names of new attorneys in the DA’s office will be announced in January, she said.

Damon Mitchell
Damon Mitchell

Mitchell, the new chief deputy district attorney, is a criminal trial attorney who graduated from Wyandotte High School, the University of Missouri at Kansas City and the University of Kansas School of Law. He is a U.S. Air Force veteran, and received the Air Force Achievement Medal. He has practiced law for more than 15 years. He was an assistant district defender before private practice.

Shanelle Dupree said the new district attorney has been traveling and meeting with different individuals, looking at different preventive programs across the country that have proven statistical numbers to back up their effectiveness. Adding “smart prosecution” programs was part of his campaign platform. He will be proactive and good things will happen in 2017, she said.

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