Separation of Powers Needed

This week, or maybe next, the Orange County Board of Supervisors will decide whether to separate the sheriff-coroner functions or leave them combined under the sheriff as they are now.

If the board makes the decision strictly on the basis of what would be best for the public and what has been working most effectively in every other major county and nation, it will separate the offices.

Last week an Assembly committee, showing its disdain for stepping into what it thought should be strictly a local decision, voted down a bill that would have forced the separation, so the decision rests with the board.

Last Tuesday the supervisors received a report on the dual office that they ordered from the county administrative office last December. The board sought the study after questions were raised about investigations into recent County Jail deaths and deputy-involved shootings. Sheriff-Coroner Brad Gates, acting as coroner, investigated the cause of death in the cases, while at the same time, as sheriff and operator of the jail, he was responsible for the prisoners in his care and the deputies in his department.

The report recommended against separating the offices. It contended that they were being run efficiently and professionally, and that there was a good working relationship with law enforcement. It also said that separating the offices would be too costly and quoted a variety of figures that added up to as much as $1.2 million in start-up expenses and as much as $588,000 in annual costs, mostly for new lab expenses.

The question is not how efficiently the office is run. We have never suggested that Gates is incompetent. Nor is the coroner’s having a good working relationship with law enforcement a key point; they should never be too cozy. And while cost must be a consideration, it must not be the determining factor.

The essential issue the supervisors must decide is whether they will continue a system in which the dual role poses not only the potential for conflict but also, even under the most professional of standards, the perception of one whenever the sheriff-coroner’s office investigates cases involving jail deaths or deputy-involved shootings. That, in effect, is the sheriff investigating himself. And that raises the public’s suspicion and erodes its confidence.

The administrative report does concede that “a perception of conflict of interest continues to persist” but argues that it may also exist if the coroner’s functions are assigned to any other agency. It may not be entirely possible to eliminate any potential conflict in any operation, but a coroner’s office independent of other county departments could come close.

When the county board was considering the problem last year, Supervisor Bruce Nestande raised appropriate questions about the combined responsibilities.

If the supervisors ask themselves those questions again, and give the potential conflicts and public interest as much weight as potential costs, they will separate the functions that never should have been combined in the first place.