EL PASO, Texas (KFOX14\/CBS4) \u2014 The El Paso District Attorney James Montoya held a press conference on Friday afternoon to discuss his office’s goals for 2026.<\/p>\n
This comes after Montoya just marked his first year in office, having been sworn in as the elected district attorney on Jan. 1, 2025.<\/p>\n
During the press conference, Montoya focused on the cases his office has been handling for the past year in an effort to tackle a years-long case backlog. <\/p>\n
According to Montoya, one of the biggest areas of progress has been reducing the number of pending cases between law enforcement and prosecutors.<\/p>\n
Between 2024 and 2025, the DA’s office reduced the number of pending caseload by nearly 2,000 cases. <\/p>\n
This reduction includes a decrease of 1,000 felony cases and 1,000 misdemeanor cases. <\/p>\n
“In my opinion, this is the overarching headline that I’m most proud of, and it is the reduction in the number of pending cases that we have here in our courthouse.”<\/p>\n
According to Montoya, the office, now staffed by 80 assistant district attorneys, manages a caseload of approximately 10,000 cases and aims to further manage cases by maintaining his staff. <\/p>\n
“But when we have 80 lawyers here in the district attorney’s office, I have 80 assistant district attorneys to work on 10,000 cases at any given time. So it’s a tremendous amount of work and so the fact that we are able to reduce the active case load in turn gives our lawyers more time to focus on the cases that they need to.” Montoya said. <\/p>\n
The office has historically charged around 10,000 misdemeanors and between 7,000 and 8,000 felony cases annually. <\/p>\n
Meanwhile, the office continues to address challenges in DWI and family violence cases, aiming to return to pre-COVID enforcement levels. <\/p>\n
Montoya highlighted the challenges faced in prosecuting family violence cases, noting the loss of institutional knowledge regarding prosecuting cases when the victim is not cooperative in the case. <\/p>\n
“There is a way, you know, one of the toughest lessons for young lawyers to learn is how to prosecute family violence cases where a victim, a complaining witness might not be cooperative. There is a way to do that, where we can go to trial and using a non one call, using independent witnesses, using visible injuries,” Montoya said. <\/p>\n
However, Montoya said efforts are underway to rebuild expertise on prosecuting family violence cases and securing more convictions in these cases without victim cooperation. <\/p>\n
He added, “We can prosecute and convict somebody for domestic violence, even if the victim doesn’t testify. But that takes knowledge, that takes training.” <\/p>\n
Montoya provided data for several cases over the past few years, including DWI cases in which 2,093 misdemeanor cases were filed in 2025.<\/p>\n
Of those cases, 1,141 of misdemeanor DWI cases were disposed of through trial, which found them guilty, while 782 cases ended in pretrial diversion. <\/p>\n
In 2025, the office disposed of cases through trials, plea deals, or dismissals of nearly 9,000 felony cases, a significant increase from the 5,000 cases disposed of in 2019. <\/p>\n
“The fact that our lawyers were able to dispose of 9,000 felony cases at this rate is something that I’m extremely proud of.”<\/p>\n
Read 2025 Progress Report:<\/p>\n
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