Most Officials Polled by Jury Would Split Sheriff-Coroner Job

In another setback for Sheriff-Coroner Brad Gates, the Orange County Grand Jury reported Thursday that an overwhelming majority of criminal justice officials it interviewed recommended splitting Gates’ department in two because of a seeming conflict of interest.

Thirty-seven of 44 questioned “felt there was a perceived conflict of interest inherent in the combined position,” the jurors said. And 37 of 44 believed the sheriff and coroner offices should be separated.

The grand jury itself stopped short of recommending such a separation, concluding that a decision should be up to the Board of Supervisors.

Report Draws Criticism

The lack of a recommendation after a four-month probe that produced a four-page report brought criticism from some county officials. But the foreman of the grand jury, Thomas Kehoe, said the panel decided against suggesting a course of action because it found no conflict of interest, only perceptions of such a conflict.

“If we’d come forth with hard data that illustrates that there was a conflict of interest, we might have taken a different stance,” Kehoe said. He added that he believed the supervisors would need a county administrative office report now being compiled before deciding what action to take.

Gates was not available for comment on the grand jury report, which like the upcoming CAO study was requested by the supervisors. The CAO report is expected to be finished at the end of the month and will discuss the costs and legal consequences of any action the supervisors might take, topics the grand jury did not address.

Despite the lack of a recommendation, the grand jury said the public perception of a conflict of interest in the Sheriff-Coroner’s Department creates a loss of respect for government, lack of confidence in law enforcement agencies, lowered morale among law enforcement personnel and an increase in the county’s vulnerability to legal actions.

Critics of a unified Sheriff-Coroner’s Department have said the conflict arises when a person dies in jail or is fatally shot by a sheriff’s deputy. To have the coroner investigate the incident when the coro ner is also the sheriff--operator of the County Jail and boss of the deputies--is to have him investigate himself, according to the critics.

In one instance last year, Gates as coroner obtained a court order allowing him to examine the psychiatric records of an inmate who died, apparently of suicide, in the jail last November. As sheriff, Gates would be barred from access to those records.

The grand jury report was based on interviews with elected and appointed officials with extensive experience in the law enforcement and health care fields, including the sheriffs of Los Angeles, San Diego, Riverside and San Bernardino counties; Gates and his predecessor as sheriff-coroner; the county district attorney and two of his deputies; three Superior Court judges; coroners and pathologists in other counties, and other officials.

Assemblyman Gil Ferguson (R-Newport Beach), author of a bill to separate sheriff’s and coroner’s offices in all counties in the state, said he was “very encouraged” by the “testimony of the various public officials and leaders of the community” in support of dividing the offices.

Ferguson was critical, however, of the grand jury for not actually making a recommendation, saying the panel “just passed the buck.”

“I’m very disappointed that the grand jury didn’t provide the public with some direction and recommendation,” Ferguson said. “I feel that they failed in their public duty.”

35 Counties Combine Offices

Thirty-five of the state’s 58 counties have combined the offices of sheriff and coroner as a means of saving money, but most that have done so are lightly populated and rural.

The 1970 Orange County Board of Supervisors combined the offices after a dispute between supervisors and then-Coroner Raymond Brandt. The first person to hold the job of sheriff-coroner, James Musick, opposed combining the functions, but Gates has steadfastly supported maintaining a combined office.

The grand jury emphasized that “the coroner’s services have been efficient and without blemish” but nevertheless concluded that “to remove the perceived conflict of interest issue with respect to the current organization,” the supervisors should determine whether to separate the positions.

Supervisor Ralph Clark said the report “seems a little clouded” because “it stops short of making a recommendation on the basic issue, should the sheriff-coroner (office) be separated.”

Clark, who last month reported that a survey of his constituents showed that two-thirds favored splitting the Sheriff-Coroner’s Department, said he would wait for more information on the issue, specifically the county administrative office’s report. “I’m pretty sure that between the two we ought to be able to get something pretty definite,” Clark said.

Supervisor Thomas F. Riley agreed that the grand jury report did not answer “the $64 question” of whether to split Gates’ department and provided little new information.

CAO Report Due April 30

Yet “it’s always good to have the grand jury involved in something of this significance,” Riley said, adding that he thought more than ever that the supervisors were correct in ordering the additional report by the CAO.

The man compiling that report, Richard Kelly, said it should be filed April 30.

Kelly, the principal CAO staff analyst, said the purpose of the report was to discuss alternatives in operating the Sheriff-Coroner’s Department, estimate the cost of any changes and discuss advantages and disadvantages. He said that although the board did not ask for a recommendation, if a clear course of action was obvious the report would say so.

As sheriff, Gates has been under fire for overcrowding in the County Jail in Santa Ana. A federal judge last month found Gates and the supervisors in criminal contempt for not obeying the judge’s seven-year-old order to ease the overcrowding.

The judge imposed a $50,000 fine and said he would add $10 per day for each inmate who had to sleep on the floor for more than one night. A county task force is currently trying to find ways of complying with the judge’s order on the jail, which has bunks for 1,530 inmates and often has a daily count of more than 2,000 inmates.