Policy Priorities

Prosecutor McDonald believes a team that is well-treated, respected, and fulfilled is a team that delivers increased productivity, efficiency, and dedication. She has endeavored to create an office culture where assistant prosecutors and support staff are encouraged to share their thoughts and feedback with their supervisors, as well as to attend to their family and personal obligations.

She has made a wide variety of quality professional development and legal training available to all assistant prosecutors, ensuring continued growth in the Office's legal prowess and that individual assistant prosecutors continue on a trajectory of professional growth.

In addition, Prosecutor McDonald has made transparency and communication with the public a key priority, hiring the Office's first-ever communications director, and maintaining an open relationship with members of the news media.

Prosecutor McDonald has directed assistant prosecutors to consider common underlying factors of criminality in a given case, including a defendant's history of mental health disorders, addiction, abuse, and trauma, and to exercise discretion - in accordance with the unique circumstances of a given case - in charging decisions and plea negotiations.

Prosecutor McDonald has ended the Oakland County Prosecutor's Office automatic use of habitual offender notices, as well as the practice of default charge-stacking, and instructed assistant prosecutors to discontinue automatically charging juveniles as adults. These guidelines are intended to increase fairness and reduce incarceration for low-level, non-violent crimes, while ensuring public safety and the welfare of all residents of Oakland County.

Understanding that communities of color, and particularly Black Americans, experience a disproportionately punitive criminal justice system, Prosecutor McDonald has made racial equity a core focus of the Oakland County Prosecutor's Office. In addition to implementing a series of charging reforms, she has launched an internal Equity Team, established a Racial Justice Community Advisory Council comprised of community leaders and experts, and formed a research partnership with the University of Michigan to assess the office’s progress in addressing racial disparities in Oakland County. McDonald also appointed the first Black woman to a leadership role in the history of the Prosecutor’s Office, ensuring that the experiences and perspectives of communities of color are represented at her leadership table.

Prosecutor McDonald has made the Oakland County Prosecutor’s Office an active participant in over a dozen diversion programs and treatment courts, including mental health courts, addiction courts, veterans’ courts, and a first-offender diversion program. Diverting low-risk individuals, especially youths and veterans, from the criminal justice system, and in particular, from incarceration, is a key priority for her administration.

Prosecutor McDonald issued resentencing notices for nearly two-dozen juvenile lifers in Oakland County, restoring their Constitutional right to be considered for parole.

Prosecutor McDonald officially launched the first ever Conviction Integrity Unit (CIU) within the Oakland County Prosecutor's Office in February 2022. The mission of the CIU is to make the criminal justice system in Oakland County more fair and accountable and to remedy past injustices. The CIU aims to restore trust in the justice system and to identify and implement office-wide best practices in order to prevent wrongful convictions from occurring. Visit the Conviction Integrity Unit page for more information on the new unit.

Prosecutor McDonald is taking action to prevent gun violence and ensure public safety for all Oakland County residents. In November 2022 she announced the formation of the first of its kind Commission of community stakeholders and experts to develop an evidence-based curriculum to prevent gun violence and mass shootings. The Commission to Address Gun Violence in Oakland County is composed of key community stakeholders, experts, and individuals who have been impacted by gun violence. Prosecutor McDonald has asked the group to create a holistic comprehensive evidence-based model that the Commission can offer as a protocol to local school districts, places of employment, municipalities, and community members to reduce gun violence. Visit the Commission to Address Gun Violence page for more information on the newly formed Commission.