Salt Lake District Attorney's hiring process prompts controversy

Salt Lake County District Attorney Lohra Miller's hiring of three people recently laid off from her husband's law firm has prompted her critics to claim something shady is going on.

Miller hired one prosecutor, Holly Petrik and two caseworkers Chenille Hutto and Melynda Losee after the trio were fired from the firm her husband worked for after that firm lost its contract to represent another Utah city, Taylorsville. Miller used federal stimulus funds that were earmarked for "revising the county's criminal justice system" However, Miller did not advertise the openings, and did not interview for the positions with anyone other than the three she hired, and some of her critics are now charging cronyism. Gregory Skordas, a Democratic candidate for Miller's job has also wondered whether there people are actually qualified for their jobs. "Lorenzo would not have lost the contract if his office and his people had been doing great work," Skordas told the Deseret News . "So, Lohra then unilaterally decides they're the cream of the crop. Maybe they are, but we'll never know now because no one else was allowed to fairly compete for it." Miller on the other hand claims that she had to move fast to get the positions filled, "The reality is — this is a great program and the grant has a tight timeline. We needed to get people hired quickly that could hit the ground running," Miller emailed the newspaper. "Doing things the way we have moves the program forward instead of standing still." "Salt Lake County, the criminal justice system and the district attorney's office have invested too much into this program to risk its success by doing anyone a 'favor,' " Miller continued. "It's about getting the job done." Salt Lake City prosecutor Sam Gill, another Democratic opponent, who has run against Miller for District Attorney before, also takes a dim view of the move. "It's unethical," Gill said. "There are many things that can be legal, but they are not necessarily ethical. The litmus test we put to our elected officials is not that they are barely legal, but that they also are highly ethical." Gill added that when his office had an opening for a prosecutor, 68 people applied, and an open clerical position brought another 100 applicants, he said the openings were advertised, interviews were carried out, and the hires were made with no problems.