News Photo by Reagan Voetberg Alpena County Assistant Prosecuting Attorney Alyssa Miller logs into her computer in the 88th District Courtroom.

ALPENA — Alpena County Assistant Prosecuting Attorney Alyssa Miller has come back to her roots in Northeast Michigan after attending law school and working as a prosecuting attorney in Cincinnati.

Miller grew up in Oscoda and moved to Cincinnati 10 years ago for law school. She was a law clerk for a year there and then served six years as a prosecuting attorney.

Miller accepted the position of assistant prosecuting attorney in Alpena to move closer to her family and nature, she said. She started the position in January.

“It’s a very nice change from Cincinnati,” Miller said. “It’s very different, so I’m still trying to adapt and learn how everything works here. The case loads are very different, and also the types of cases that there are.”

Miller said that she worked on a lot of urban crimes involving guns, drugs, and gang-related incidents.

In her position in Alpena, Miller works on all the criminal sexual conduct (CSC), domestic violence, and stalking cases.

“It was actually kind of perfect because I did always prefer those types of cases in Cincinnati,” she said. “In Cincinnati when I was in … the municipal division, but handling misdemeanors, I would prefer to do the domestic violence cases over … traffic offenses or thefts, and I would try to be assigned more of those cases.”

Alpena County Prosecuting Attorney Cynthia Muszynski said that the person previously in Miller’s position, Elizabeth Reed, had specialized in CSC and domestic violence.

As a young prosecutor, Miller has faced times where people make assumptions about how much experience she has.

“When you start a new job, people don’t know if you’ve ever done this before or if you know what you’re doing, so there are always challenges with that,” she said.

Miller has also had to learn Michigan law and how it differs from Ohio law. The building blocks are all the same, she said, but sentencing guidelines and other aspects are different.

“I think the most rewarding part is when you can get justice for victims,” Miller said. “We deal with so many victims. Every day they come in here, you know, so distressed, and they don’t have anywhere else to go. They go to the police, obviously, to report their crime and the police investigate and do their reports. And then, after that, you know, they’re just stuck. And it’s really rewarding when you can make them feel safer or make them feel better for what has happened to them.”

Nothing that we do can make them whole again, she said, but doing one thing to make them feel safer, like an extra bond condition or longer period of time where that person is off the streets, is helpful.

“That they don’t have to screw their door shut or have, you know, people sitting at their home waiting for this person to come bust through their door … if you can give them that guarantee I think it makes it all worth it,” Miller said.

She added that the community collaborates to help victims in the cases she specializes in.

“There is a lot that goes into these types of cases and I am grateful to be in a community where law enforcement, our office, the Child Advocacy Center, and Hope Shores Alliance can all work collaboratively to achieve justice for our victims,” Miller said in an email. “It is inspiring to see such passion and advocacy in and out of the courtroom.”

Reagan Voetberg can be reached at 989-358-5683 or rvoetberg@TheAlpenaNews.com.