Transparency in government is an absolute prerequisite to accountability, especially for prosecutors who wield unmatched discretionary powers during Colorado’s undeniable crime tsunami. Last week, a handful of district attorneys’ offices took a first, well-intentioned — albeit inconsistent — baby step toward that transparency.

Colorado’s monopoly on state prosecutorial power is divided among 22 judicial districts. Each of those districts has its own elected district attorney, who is accountable only to their constituents.

Despite his past claims to the contrary and a badge he proudly displays on social media, the state attorney general, Phil Weiser, is not the chief law enforcement officer of Colorado. DAs are. They alone can authorize transparency surrounding their exercise of discretion at the various stages of criminal prosecution, including: whether to charge, whom to charge, with what charges and how to resolve those charges.

Led by 18th Judicial District Attorney John Kellner (Arapahoe, Douglas, Elbert & Lincoln counties, and 1st Judicial District Attorney Alexis King (Jefferson & Gilpin counties), eight of Colorado’s 22 DAs have thus far participated in a collective project to make available to the public statistics about their decision-making. Of the four jurisdictions that make up the Denver metro area — encompassing more than half of Colorado’s population — only the 17th (Adams/Broomfield counties) inexplicably does not participate. The information can be found at Data.DAColorado.org.

The effort is altogether refreshing and frustrating. The information has some admitted limitations, as well as the need for easy-to-achieve improvements.

The data is inconsistently presented, with each office seemingly picking and choosing what to reveal and in what format. For instance, the percentage of felony cases brought to DAs offices by law enforcement, and subsequently declined to be filed, is an important statistic that touches upon the relationship between the police and the prosecutor, the quality of the cases investigated by the police and — perhaps most importantly — how the prosecutor’s polices impact their decisions to aggressively pursue crime.

The 1st and 18th manage their declination rates across more than 20 separate law enforcement agencies, each of which brings them felonies to file. Denver has one: the Denver Police Department. In the 1st Judicial District, King’s office has increased the rate at which it declines to file felony cases by 62% since she was sworn in as DA. In the 18th, Kellner’s declination rate has gone the opposite direction, decreasing by 10% since he took over. Despite an introductory video statement that “as a progressive prosecutor, I am very committed to transparency and accountability…” Denver’s DA Beth McCann does not reveal any information about the office’s declination rate.

The ongoing effort to address racial disparities in the criminal justice system has picked up great momentum since George Floyd’s murder and the Elijah McClain incident. The data — admittedly challenging to collect — reveals interesting and important trends. During the past two years, the gap between the percentage of felony cases declined against white defendants versus Black in the 1st and 18th districts is widening in favor of whites. Again, Denver does not provide this information to the public.

Although violent crime is surging in the metro area, only the 18th filed more violent crime cases in 2021 than it did in 2017; the 1st and Denver filed fewer. In measuring the effectiveness of their deferred judgment case resolutions — post-plea alternatives to a permanent conviction — the 1st and 18th report their recidivism rates. Denver does not.

Denver reports the number of their diversion cases — pre-plea resolutions — broken down by adult and juvenile, but interestingly defines “juvenile” to include 18-to-20-year-old adults. Denver’s DA states “our goal is to achieve equity in plea outcomes among all defendants regardless of race and/or ethnicity.” No definition of equity is given. Neither the 1st nor the 18th reference “equity.”

Other data touch upon sentencing, demographics of defendants and victims, staffing and other areas related to the prosecution function. But, again, it’s not consistent from one office to the next. Michael Allen, 4th Judicial District Attorney in El Paso and Gilpin counties, was so concerned about the accuracy of the data being reported, he created his own website, DA4Colorado.gov/data-dashboards, with real-time data on numerous similar areas.

Coloradans should insist on certain improvements, including legislatively mandated accumulation and dissemination of the same metrics by each DAs office and in a format where office-to-office comparisons can be readily made. For those jurisdictions under 250,000 in population, the legislature should appropriate funds to support that data collection. The data should be reported to, managed and made publicly available by the Colorado District Attorneys Council (CDAC) — not the Attorney General’s Office — which also should be mandated to report its prosecutorial data to CDAC.

Coloradans should cheer this initial effort, explore what data is available and use it to question their elected DAs.

George Brauchler is the former district attorney for the 18th Judicial District. He also is president of the Advance Colorado Academy, which identifies, trains and connects conservative leaders in Colorado. He hosts The George Brauchler Show on 710KNUS Monday through Friday from 6 a.m. to 10 a.m. Follow him on Twitter: @GeorgeBrauchler.