Houghton County’s prosecutor says his office has made significant progress addressing case backlogs. But resource limitations continue to hamper justice delivery in the region.
Dan Helmer has led the Houghton County Prosecutor’s Office for nearly two years. He discussed ongoing challenges during a recent interview on Keweenaw Report’s Copper Country Today program. His comments preceded Monday’s court session, where the Houghton County Circuit Court completed only two of four scheduled sentencings.
Helmer inherited a substantial backlog of cases when he took office. He needed to hire a full staff to work in family and district courts. The office has since caught up on those cases.
“I think we’re working on better using our court that we have, utilizing our time that we have and our pretrials that we have better,” Helmer said. “And I also think part of it was managing expectations of the defense bar.”
Helmer said his office has changed the culture around plea negotiations, that previously dominated the court system.
“Coming in, we’d went quite a few years without any felony jury trials. Most things pled, if not all, or got dismissed,” he said. “My office, my plan when I came here was to get rid of that and to let the defense attorneys know. We will go to trial if we have to, if justice requires that.”
The prosecutor’s office must use plea agreements in lower-offense cases. This allows them to focus resources on more serious crimes, including three murder cases from 2023. Helmer’s caseload alone includes more than 100 felony incidents.
Processing delays also affect case timelines, such as appeals sent to the Michigan Court of Appeals. Additionally evidence gathering takes significant time and is restricted by how close a lab is located. Blood draw results from drunk driving arrests must be sent out of the area, often sent to Lansing for testing. Which can take multiple weeks to complete before being sent back to Houghton County.
“Say somebody gets pulled over arrested for drunk driving, clearly is intoxicated, but we do a blood draw,” Helmer explained. “That blood draw has got to be packaged up, put in the mail, sent to Lansing before you get that blood result. But it takes weeks.”
He releases suspects pending lab results when no other evidence of intoxication exists. This includes cases without preliminary breath test results.
“You don’t want to deprive that person of their liberty until you have the evidence,” Helmer said.
The county jail’s limited capacity creates additional challenges. The facility cannot house juveniles until arraignment. It also lacks sufficient beds for pretrial detention. Currently, three inmates charged with murder await trial. Many other beds house inmates serving sentences.
Helmer works with Judge Brittaney Bulleit and Sheriff Joshua Saaranen to manage the capacity constraints. But the limitations have forced the release of offenders. Those offenders subsequently can commit new crimes while awaiting their next hearing.
“The point of jail pre-trial, at least, isn’t to punish people. You don’t want to hold people awaiting trial for no reason. But it’s to protect the public,” Helmer said. “And we’ve got multiple repeat offenders who were released almost out of necessity who then have went out and committed a new crime.”
Houghton County voters have rejected four previous proposals to fund a new jail facility. Those rejections came in 2000, 2010, 2018, and August 2025. Three committees have spent recent months analyzing past campaigns, facility needs, and related topics.
The Houghton County Commission expects to receive reports from those committees in April. They plan to seek a millage later this year.
