Audit of the Norfolk District Attorney’s Office Objectives, Scope, Methodology

An overview of the purpose and process of auditing the Norfolk District Attorney’s Office.

Overview

In accordance with Section 12 of Chapter 11 of the Massachusetts General Laws, the Office of the State Auditor (OSA) has conducted a performance audit of certain activities of the Norfolk District Attorney's Office (NDAO) for the period January 1, 2017 through December 31, 2017.

We conducted this performance audit in accordance with generally accepted government auditing standards, except Objective 3 below, which the audit constraints affected our ability to obtain sufficient, appropriate evidence to meet. The standards require that we plan and perform the audit to obtain sufficient, appropriate evidence to provide a reasonable basis for our findings and conclusions based on our audit objectives. If sufficient, appropriate evidence had been provided, we might have been able to conclude that Objective 3 was met, or we might have identified other issues with the performance of the Victim Witness Program. For the other objectives, we believe that the evidence obtained provides a reasonable basis for our findings and conclusions based on our audit objectives.

Below is a list of our audit objectives, indicating each question we intended our audit to answer; the conclusion we reached regarding each objective; and, if applicable, where each objective is discussed in the audit findings.

Objective	Conclusion
Does NDAO ensure that all program requirements are fulfilled and documented for participants who have successfully completed its Diversion Program?	Yes
Does NDAO measure the performance of its Diversion Program?	No; see Finding 1
Does NDAO’s Victim Witness Program provide assistance throughout the court process to victims and witnesses of crimes as required by Section 5 of Chapter 258B of the General Laws?	Inconclusive; see Audit Constraints

To achieve our objectives, we gained an understanding of NDAO’s internal control environment related to our audit objectives by reviewing applicable laws, regulations, and agency policies and procedures, as well as conducting inquiries with NDAO’s staff and management.

Audit Constraints

Section 7.11 of Chapter 7 of the US Government Accountability Office’s Government Auditing Standards states,

Auditors should . . . report any significant constraints imposed on the audit approach by information limitations or scope impairments, including denials or excessive delays of access to certain records or individuals.

During our audit, NDAO imposed significant constraints on the audit process because, according to agency officials, they were concerned about the confidentiality of information that OSA requested regarding participants in NDAO’s Diversion and Victim Witness Programs. Specifically, NDAO did not give OSA access to certain information regarding program participants that OSA needed in order to conduct our audit testing in a timely manner. In some instances, NDAO took one month to provide requested information; in one instance, it took eight months. Although OSA was eventually able to complete the audit work that was necessary to meet some of the audit objectives, these constraints significantly delayed the completion of the audit.

The constraints were as follows:

• NDAO significantly delayed OSA’s access to its Diversion Program and Victim Witness Program case files because of confidentiality concerns. Although we requested this information in August 2017 and January 2018, NDAO did not provide the requested documents until April and May 2018.
• NDAO did not give us access to source documents to conduct our audit testing. We received redacted Diversion Program case files, and we were not allowed to review or handle Victim Witness Program case files containing victim witness advocates’ notes and dates when contact was made with victims or witnesses. Rather, the contents of the selected files were read to us by the First Assistant District Attorney.

Methodology

We performed the following procedures to address our audit objectives:

• We reviewed a nonstatistical random sample of 10 out of 36 Diversion Program case files disposed of during the audit period to determine whether contracts were signed by the program participants, their parents or guardians if the participants were juveniles, and the Assistant District Attorney, as well as whether there was evidence that the specific conditions required by the signed contracts had been met by participants who successfully completed all program requirements (e.g., performing community service, writing a letter of apology, and/or completing an education program in person or online). However, the information in the case files we reviewed was redacted.
• We asked NDAO officials about the process of tracking or measuring the performance of the Diversion Program. NDAO officials told us that the office does not track Diversion Program participants after they complete the program to measure the program’s performance; NDAO officials stated that the decision to divert a juvenile or young adult is part of the everyday business of the district and juvenile courts and is considered a type of disposition similar to the decision to bring the case forward for sentencing.
• For the Victim Witness Program, we selected a statistical random sample using a 95% confidence level and a tolerable error rate of 5%. We sampled 60 out of 2,228 cases that were disposed of during the audit period involving charges for crimes related to Chapters 265 and 266 of the General Laws to obtain cases that involved a victim and/or witness. However, because of the audit constraints mentioned above, we could not review the source documents in these files; instead, the First Assistant District Attorney reviewed each file in our presence and explained, for each case, how NDAO offered victims and witnesses of crimes the rights and services governed by Section 5 of Chapter 258B of the General Laws (see Appendix).

In the cases in which we applied a nonstatistical approach, we were not able to project our results to the entire population.

We obtained a list of criminal cases for the Diversion Program from a Microsoft Excel spreadsheet maintained by the NDAO Diversion Program coordinator. We obtained a list of criminal cases for the Victim Witness Program from the District Attorney Management Information Office Network (DAMION)² system. We were only able to perform limited procedures, such as reviewing information technology policies and testing selected system user access controls, to assess the reliability of the data obtained from DAMION. We were not allowed to see the names of the Diversion and Victim Witness Program participants to select a sample of case files from the file cabinet and trace the files back to the lists. Additionally, we were only allowed to see redacted Diversion Program case files rather than original source documents. For the Victim Witness Program, the First Assistant District Attorney reviewed and read us excerpts from the victim witness advocates’ notes in the case files that pertained to our third audit objective.

2.    DAMION is NDAO’s case-management system. NDAO uses it to track court dates for each case.

Date published:	October 24, 2018