Stop the Legal Shenanigans

So grim are state and local finances that some trial courts could close their doors this year and lay off more employees. Yet for two weeks now, county public defenders have filed hundreds of time-consuming motions arguing that because Rocky Delgadillo was not an active member of the California bar when he worked for Mayor Richard Riordan, he is not qualified to be city attorney. Their clients, they add, should thus be set free. They’re not arguing that Delgadillo lacks qualification as a lawyer, only that he hadn’t paid extra dues to keep his bar membership active between 1995 and 1999.

“We’re trying to protect the interests of our clients,” said John Vacca, an acting assistant public defender. “It’s a matter of due process; a criminal offense should be filed by an officer duly qualified to hold office under the City Charter.”

Public defenders have made this silly argument in at least 500 cases over the last two weeks. Not one judge has bought it. But as of Monday, they were still at it.

The idea to challenge Delgadillo’s qualifications came from a recent article on Deputy Dist. Atty. Lea Purwin D’Agostino in a local legal newspaper. D’Agostino, who finished third in the 2001 city attorney’s race that Delgadillo won, called on the state attorney general to review whether Delgadillo could serve, because he was not practicing law when he ran for office. A Columbia Law School graduate, Delgadillo had left active practice by the time he joined Riordan as a deputy mayor, but renewed his active status in 2001. The public defender’s gambit is frivolous, especially for an office always moaning about understaffing.

Former City Councilman Michael Feuer has already been over the same ground. Feuer, an inactive bar member while on the City Council who also ran against Delgadillo, had asked then-City Atty. James Hahn if he was eligible to run. Hahn ruled that he was. Even for judicial candidates, the California Constitution requires them to have been bar members for the 10 previous years but does not require them to be on active status. Still, Chief Public Defender Michael Judge, who otherwise has a respectable record, says he wants an appeals court to rule on the legality of his challenge. Another waste of time.

Maybe public defenders think they’re being smart by trying to get defendants off the hook wholesale, no matter what the merits of the cases. In that event, they should hear from taxpayers, who have to pay for this trick as well as put up with street crime.