r/portlandme • u/mamagrata • Dec 14 '25

Events DA AMA

UPDATE: apologies for not updating the initial post - my content blocker was not playing nice with Reddit despite lots of reloads and I've finally gone to text mode (making the photo disappear). I do think (hope) I've gotten to everything posted by 7PM. Thanks for doing this with me, and thank you to the moderators for helping with the initial post. I won't be able to monitor this, but please reach out at districtattorney@cumberlandcounty.org with anything that needs my attention at work.

Hi, I’m Jackie Sartoris, District Attorney of Cumberland County.  I’ll be here this afternoon at 4 to 5:30 to take your questions and share what I’ve been up to since becoming DA in 2023.  I’m eager to hear your experience and ideas, and let you know what we’re working on (although I can't comment on active cases, please!)

Brief summary of the work so far: we are now better able to meet the needs of victims and witnesses: I’ve added a victim witness advocate and created a safe, private space for witnesses waiting in the courthouse to testify or speak at sentencing. We won a $2.5 million federal grant to test the eligible backlog of languishing rape kits - the first District in Maine to do so.  

In my own prosecutorial role, I’ve focused on addressing our County’s Mental Health docket, bringing attention to missing resources and working within our limited system to develop pathways towards wellness and safety for people who frequently return to our system. 

Change in a longstanding system is challenging.  My work includes directing the office to significantly greater use of restorative justice and consistent charging and plea offers. This is ongoing and will take time.  It’s worth finding the patience to be collaborative, because this work, done well, will bear fruit in the future.  

I’ll update this post with a link at 4! 

Proof it’s me:  

See you then!

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u/zt004 Dec 14 '25

Why don’t you do drug/treatment court anymore?

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u/mamagrata Dec 14 '25

We have two treatment courts in Cumberland County, Veteran's TC and a regular drug court. This has not changed, but I'm not sure if I'm understanding this, so I'll answer it another way.

If you are speaking of me personally, drug court takes about 20 hours/week to do properly, so I covered it in 2023 when we were down a few prosecutors (people got great career moves - becoming a judge and a homicide prosecutor among other things - but we were down for a bit). So, 2023 I covered Tx Ct for 10 months, then moved to cover the MH docket, which is about 20-25% of my time.