General Jurisdiction and Relationship with District Attorneys

All but four states divide criminal prosecution responsiblities among the attorney general and local district attorneys. The attorney general is the exclusive state prosecutor in Rhode Island, Delaware and Alaska. and the AG of Connecticut has no criminal jurisdiction.  While the statutes and policies differ from state to state, this long-standing practice of two interconnected levels of state criminal prosecution has historically operates almost invisibly although emerging demographic changes are challenging the practice.

The divided responsibilities between attorneys general and district attorneys are meant to be complementary. The DA's handle the vast majority of cases and the AG's take those matters where there are legal conflicts (the DA or his/her staff has a personal relationship with a party, the judge, or a witness) or involve specific subject matter issues. (Medicaid Fraud, major crime in a rural areas, white-collar crime, all homicides in some states, and increasingly, allegations of police brutality.).

This structure is designed to allow the public to have greater confidence in the final result.   It is not that the lawyers for the attorney general are "better" than the lawyers for the district attorney, but rather it is that AG offices often have resources that allow the development of expertise in areas that rarely come before a DA.