Jurors Pirouette Around Issue of Gates’ Dual Role

If they were looking to grand jurors for direction on the issue of the dual sheriff-coroner office, Orange County supervisors and California legislators must be sorely disappointed.

In perhaps the most classic sidestep since the governor’s dance in Broadway’s “The Best Little Whorehouse in Texas,” the Orange County Grand Jury gracefully dodged the major question asked of it.

County supervisors were straightforward and plain-spoken when they asked the panel last December whether there is an inherent conflict of interest in letting one person serve in both offices.

Unresponsive Salvo

Last week, however, the watchdog panel fired back an unresponsive salvo with a shrug here, a “well, maybe” there and the hard-and-fast conclusion that it is certainly something to think about.

“What they’ve really done is say what we already knew: That (the board) should make a determination” whether to separate the posts, said Board of Supervisors Chairman Thomas Riley.

“That was our question.”

The jury’s five-page report, which had more lists and charts than text, seemed to lean toward a suggestion that the two offices ought to be separated. But it certainly never said so.

Debate in Committee Likely

The grand jury report is likely to be discussed in the capital later this month, when Orange County Sheriff-Coroner Brad Gates and Assemblyman Gil Ferguson (R-Newport Beach) are expected to take the debate before the Assembly Local Government Committee.

Ferguson, a first-term legislator who defeated the Gates-endorsed candidate in a bitter Republican primary last year, has introduced a bill to prohibit combining the sheriff and coroner offices in all but small counties.

He and other critics question whether a coroner who is also sheriff can conduct a fair inquiry into a death in which deputies are involved.

Ferguson, who says the need to separate the two offices is an “obvious moral issue,” can point to the grand jury’s statement that the dual role has brought about “a definite perception of a conflict of interest, whether justified or not.”

Meanwhile, Gates, who defends the combined office as a good idea and views most criticisms of it as an attack on his integrity, can point to a grand jurors’ statement that “coroner’s services have been efficient and without blemish.”

The grand jury’s four recommendations are all iffy.

The first, as Riley pointed out, is that “the Board of Supervisors determine if the positions of sheriff and coroner should be separated.”

Another Recommendation

If they are separated, begins the second, “the office of coroner should stand alone with the current administrative structure.”

The third and fourth recommendations are for a change in the sheriff-coroner’s organizational chart and a written directive that the district attorney’s office must look into deputy-related deaths outside of jail facilities.

The meat of the report, however, was not so much its recommendations as the findings based on interviews with 44 persons from law enforcement, local government and professions related to the duties of a coroner.

Without explaining how those interviewed were chosen, the grand jury said 37 of the 44 believed that the dual office created a “perceived conflict of interest.”

‘Lack of Respect’

That, said the grand jury, supposedly summing up the consensus, “creates a loss of respect for government, lack of confidence in law enforcement,” low morale among officers and “increased county vulnerability to legal actions.”

All that sounds like damning stuff for Gates and his supporters, who would like to keep things as they are.

Although 35 of the state’s 58 counties have sheriff-coroners, the grand jury chose to interview only one of them, Richard Rainey of Contra Costa County.

In contrast, the grand jurors talked to the sheriffs of four counties in which the offices are separate. They also talked to top officials of three independent coroners’ offices.

The panel said it also talked to three Superior Court judges, whom it did not name.

At Odds With Judges

Gates and many of Orange County’s judges have been feuding for years over numerous issues, including the coroner-sheriff arrangement.

Even some politicians who are not particularly supportive of Gates were wondering aloud whether the grand jury conducted a balanced survey.

“With Brad, you know, it is real easy to get personalities involved in these things,” Riley said. “As you well know, Brad doesn’t have many friends with the judges.”

Meanwhile, it is unclear how the grand jury report will affect pending decisions by local and state lawmakers.

In Santa Ana, strong local opinion can pack a mighty wallop. Should the county administrative office, scheduled to complete a report on the issue later this month, come up with a strong suggestion that Orange County has outgrown the combined office, a decision by supervisors to split the posts may be more likely.

Impact May Be Different

In Sacramento, however, the impact of the report may be different. Critics of Ferguson’s bill are already characterizing it as a silly, costly and unneeded reform stemming from a local political dispute.

Ferguson’s bill could have benefited from a clear recommendation of separating the offices and findings of serious problems resulting from the combination of duties, legislative observers said. The report fell short of that, and Ferguson was critical of the grand jury for being inconclusive.

If legislative researchers do their homework well, however, they will find that the report jibes nicely with a long history of California local government studies of the subject.

At least four other Orange County grand juries have looked into the question. While two were somewhat critical, none found anything seriously wrong with the arrangement.

Study Cited

A comprehensive study by the Contra Costa County administrator’s office concluded in 1977 that the dual arrangement is best, despite “the potential for conflicts.”

After reading the latest grand jury report, Riley said he believed, on hindsight, that it was extremely wise that supervisors had ordered the separate study by the county administrative office.

The grand jury, he said, failed to answer “the $64 question.”