Dist. Atty. Charles Branson has hired a former campaign supporter as a part-time prosecutor. Branson said he needed help reducing a backlog of cases left behind by his predecessor.

Since Feb. 22, Lawrence attorney Ronald Schneider has been working for Branson 20 hours per week while keeping his private law practice. State law prohibits assistant district attorneys from outside practice, but exceptions are allowed for “special counsel” as long as the Douglas County Commission gives approval.

“We just need a cursory blessing” from the commission, Branson said. “We told the commissioners what we were doing, and they said ‘OK, as long as it comes out of your budget and not ours, we don’t care.'”

Branson is paying Schneider $36.06 per hour, which is on the high end of what assistant prosecutors earn. Full-time assistant district attorneys are salaried but earn the equivalent of between $21 and $36 per hour, depending on experience.

Schneider’s private practice includes criminal-defense work, but Branson said Schneider has agreed not to defend any criminal cases while working in the office.

Branson has said he inherited a backlog of 700 potential cases from former Dist. Atty. Christine Kenney. Since Branson took office in January, prosecutors have filed charges in about a dozen of those cases.

Schneider will review police reports in that backlog and decide on charges, Branson said.

Schneider is a former assistant prosecutor in Wyandotte County and a part-time municipal court judge. He could not be reached for comment Tuesday, but in an interview in March 2004, he said he thought Kenney’s office was charging cases too severely at times and was not exercising enough oversight of police.

“A lot of cases have fallen through the cracks that shouldn’t have,” Schneider said. “There have been cases that have been overcharged and improperly prosecuted, and her relationship and duties toward the police department in particular are uncertain and vague, as far as I’m concerned.”

Branson has pledged to start a consumer-protection division in the office and to improve services for victims and witnesses. But with two of his prosecutors working full-time in the ongoing murder trial of Thomas E. Murray, he said plans to launch any major new programs were on hold.

With the departure last month by Assistant Dist. Atty. Dan Dunbar, Branson now has two attorneys’ jobs and one support-staff job he can fill.