Jim Vukelic calls himself the acting Grant County state's attorney. The title may not be technically accurate, though the Bismarck attorney does act as the county's prosecutor and legal counsel for the county commission.

In reality, Vukelic is a Grant County assistant state's attorney with no one to assist - there is no Grant County state's attorney.

"I'm the only show in town," he said.

Grant County and other rural counties in North Dakota have had to find ways around state laws requiring state's attorneys to be residents of the counties they serve, because many of the counties have no lawyers or no lawyers interested in holding the positions living within their boundaries. As the populations in rural counties decrease, the nonresident state's attorneys believe the Legislature will have to revisit residency requirements for the position.

Aaron Birst, legal counsel for the North Dakota Association of Counties, said at least six counties have state's attorneys who do not live in the counties they serve. Joining Grant County, to Birst's knowledge, are the counties of Burke, Griggs, Steele, Sioux and Slope.

The counties have found different ways to fill their prosecutor positions. Grant County, for example, used a 2002 opinion of Attorney General Wayne Stenehjem as authority to hire an out-of-county assistant state's attorney to fill the office.

Former Grant County State's Attorney Ron Weikum, the only attorney living in Grant County, decided to step down from the elected position in 2006 to focus on his civil law work, which he said he enjoys more than prosecutorial work. Before he stepped down, he hired Vukelic as an assistant state's attorney.

Assistant state's attorneys are given the same duties and responsibilities of a state's attorney by North Dakota law, but they do not have to be residents of the county because it is a hired, not an elected, position. So, with Vukelic at the helm, there was no vacancy in the position of Grant County state's attorney.

Several counties have joint powers agreements with other counties, meaning one county's state's attorney can serve as the state's attorney in the adjacent county.

Barnes County State's Attorney Brad Cruff also is the Griggs County state's attorney under a joint powers agreement between the two counties. Steele County State's Attorney Charles Stock said he serves as Cruff's assistant state's attorney and does the prosecutorial work for Griggs County.

Bowman County State's Attorney Nici Meyer Clarkson also serves as the state's attorney in adjacent Slope County. Clarkson is on maternity leave and couldn't be reached for comment.

Other counties have found different ways to find people to serve as state's attorneys.

Stock said Steele County has authority to appoint nonresident state's attorneys because they had done so prior to the enactment of a state law requiring state's attorneys to be residents of the counties they serve. Since that had been the county's practice, it was "grandfathered in," he said.

Historically, Steele County has not had many resident attorneys, Stock said.

Sioux County State's Attorney Maury Thompson, of Bismarck, and Burke County State's Attorney Jeffrey Sheets, of Minot, responded to advertisements for open state's attorneys positions in Sioux and Burke counties.

No licensed attorneys live in Sioux County or Burke County. Thompson said he was unsure of the legal precedent allowing the county to advertise for the state's attorney position. Sheets said he believes counties with no licensed attorneys are allowed to advertise and hire out-of-county attorneys under state law, though he could not cite the section of the North Dakota Century Code that contains such a provision.

According to U.S. Census Bureau statistics, the six counties with nonresident state's attorneys are among 29 counties in North Dakota with estimated July 1, 2006, populations of less than 5,000 residents. Only 15 of 53 North Dakota counties were estimated to have increased in population between July 1, 2005, and July 1, 2006, and of those 15 growing counties only eight have populations below 10,000.

Vukelic said the small counties are unlikely to reverse the current trend of decreasing populations, and less people likely means less attorneys.

"I just see this state's attorney problem being exacerbated over the next couple of decades due to the dwindling population in rural areas," he said. "It's very hard to entice an attorney to live in the county."

"More and more rural counties are going to find themselves without attorneys as residents," Stock agreed.

Weikum said he served as the elected or appointed Grant County state's attorney through several terms. During that time, he would try to work with University of North Dakota Law School to find attorneys to serve as part-time assistant state's attorneys and part time in his private practice in hopes of getting an attorney to stay in the county.

The arrangements would work for awhile, but eventually most of the attorneys were interested in working in the Bismarck-Mandan area, he said.

With Grant County situated in the vicinity of Bismarck and Mandan, Weikum remains optimistic that someone will want to practice law there.

"I'm hopeful that we can find someone again for Grant County," he said.

Just because the six counties have few or no attorneys and dwindling populations does not mean there are no crimes to prosecute.

In Vukelic's current occupancy in the Grant County state's attorney's office, he has prosecuted assaults, sexual assaults and felony drug cases.

"There has been a fair amount of criminal activity," he said.

Stock said the dockets of the counties with nonresident state's attorneys are no lighter than the dockets of other low-population counties. Sheets said Burke County, on the border with Canada, has had "an amazing number of cases" with controlled substances being transported across the border since he took office on Jan.1.

Still, there aren't enough cases in the counties for a full-time state's attorney. The state's attorneys of many low-population counties also have other positions.

Vukelic also serves as an administrative hearing officer for the Department of Transportation and has a "practically nonexistent" private practice. Stock travels one day a week to Griggs County and one day a week to Steele County and spends the rest of the week at his private practice in Crookston, Minn. Sheets travels to Burke County from Minot once a week, and Thompson goes to Sioux County from Bismarck once a week, and both also have private practices.

Sheets said it is no longer feasible for attorneys to set up private practices in some of North Dakota's smaller communities. That also may be keeping some lawyers from setting up shop in rural counties.

Vukelic thinks the North Dakota Legislature needs to consider changing to a district attorney's system, where one district attorney's office would take the place of state's attorneys in several counties.

The idea is not a new one to North Dakota: according to the Legislative Council, it has come up at least three times since 1975.

A bill to create the office of district attorney never made it out of the Senate in 1975. The 1977-78 interim Criminal Justice System Committee studied a proposal to create a system of district attorneys and state-employed defense attorneys.

"The purpose of the proposal would be to free the state's attorneys to concentrate on their numerous other responsibilities to counties," the report said.

The estimated cost of such a system was estimated by the committee to be $2 million to $3 million per biennium.

"The committee does not recommend the proposal due to the cost and the inability of the state's attorneys to agree to the proposal," the report said.

The issue was brought up in the Legislature most recently during the 1999 session by a Senate concurrent resolution that would have directed the Legislative Council to study moving to a district attorney system. The resolution did not make it out of the Senate.

Sen. Dave Nething, a Jamestown attorney who has served in the Senate since 1967, said the idea of using district attorneys has not had many supporters over the years.

"There's just been some reluctance because people keep thinking it will work out and work out, and it never does," said Nething, the Senate Judiciary Committee chairman.

Vukelic believes the idea is feasible in the future and becoming necessary due to the decreasing populations of many counties.

"I hope the Legislature will revisit the issue," he said.

He said districts could be set up based on caseload, with areas such as the current Southwest Judicial District containing more counties due to fewer cases.

"It just seems part of the process in the judiciary that things get consolidated in the largest cities," Vukelic said.

Dividing prosecutorial work into districts isn't an idea all of the nonresident state's attorneys agree on, but they believe the Legislature needs to look into the situation.

Stock said counties should have local power and authority in the form of county state's attorneys rather than district attorneys.

"I hope that doesn't occur," he said about the possibility of the state dividing into prosecutorial districts.

Thompson said centralizing prosecutions may be more efficient, but he said counties would be reluctant to give up that authority.

"I think the system works," Thompson said. "I don't think it needs fixing."

Sheets thinks the issue needs to be looked into, but he worries that a district attorney system would give more people a reason to move out of rural areas.

"That's just going to speed up the migration out of small towns," he said.

Stock hopes the Legislature will look at ways to allow counties to more easily compromise on the residency requirements for state's attorneys, because right now the process involves "just a bunch of unnecessary paperwork."

Nething said it seems likely the issue will come up in the Legislature again in the future.

"I don't know exactly what the solution might be," he said. "Maybe it's time to look at (a district attorney system) again."

Nething said one downfall of having part-time state's attorneys in small counties is that those part-time prosecutors are going up in court against full-time defense attorneys.

"They don't have that much crime, and consequently, they don't get that much time to develop their skills," he said.

No matter what the solution, the problem does not seem likely to go away.

"There's just a shortage of attorneys who want to live in small communities," Nething said.

"I'm afraid it's something that most rural areas have problems with," Weikum said.

(Reach reporter Jenny Michael at 250-8225 or jenny.michael@bismarcktribune.com.)