Plan Would Divide City Attorney’s Dual Roles

Citing examples of how the Los Angeles city attorney must advise city officials on one hand and then prosecute them if they violate the law, Los Angeles City Councilman Ernani Bernardi Tuesday proposed that the city attorney’s office be split into two branches.

“An inherent conflict of interest lies in the city attorney’s dual role,” Bernardi said in a motion made to the City Council. Under his proposal, one branch of the office would be headed by an elected prosecutor, and the other by a legal adviser appointed by the council.

Bernardi and other council members have previously advocated a split in the city attorney’s office into offices comparable to the county counsel and district attorney’s offices, but the proposals have failed to gain approval of the full council.

Authority Divided

Under state law, city attorneys are empowered to prosecute only misdemeanor cases, and district attorneys handle all felony cases. Bernardi’s motion, which would require a voter-approved Charter amendment to become law, will be studied by the council’s Government Operations Committee.

The proposal comes a week after City Atty. James K. Hahn decided to refer to the district attorney’s office an investigation concerning Councilman Richard Alatorre. The city attorney was looking at whether Alatorre violated the city’s campaign contribution law by using his state campaign funds to finance his city race. Hahn’s spokesman said the investigation was being passed to the district attorney’s office “to avoid the appearance of conflict of interest.”

Lawyers in the city attorney’s office have “advised those running for office, including Mr. Alatorre,” said Mike Qualls, a spokesman for Hahn. Under the city Charter, the city attorney is legal counsel to the City Council “and works closely with (its members) on a daily basis,” Qualls said. If the city attorney, after providing advice to Alatorre and others who were running for office, had continued looking for potential legal violations by Alatorre, “there was the possibility of the perception of conflict of interest,” Qualls added.

The district attorney’s office is now reviewing Alatorre campaign reports and other documents to determine whether there have been any legal violations.

Hahn said in a statement Tuesday that conflict-of-interest problems within the city attorney’s office are “rare and isolated.” The separate city prosecutor’s office that once existed was abolished by voters in 1933, he noted. Of the 120,000 criminal cases filed each year by his office, Hahn said, the cases that involve a conflict for his prosecutors are “so minuscule . . . it hardly rises to the level in which the city needs two separate offices. (That) would create two separate bureaucracies, which would create new costs for the taxpayers.”

Highly Visible Case

But in some highly visible cases, the role of the city attorney has been cited as a problem, not only in the Alatorre inquiry but also in an earlier case involving Planning Director Calvin Hamilton and spying incidents involving the Los Angeles Police Department’s now-disbanded Public Disorder Intelligence Division.

In the case of Hamilton, the planner was investigated in 1984 by the city attorney’s office after he was accused of misusing his office and staff to promote a tourism firm and of soliciting support from developers and others doing business with the city. Because felony charges that could only be prosecuted by the district attorney’s office might be involved, he said, then-City Atty. Ira Reiner referred the case to the district attorney’s office.

A Superior Court judge later ruled that evidence obtained in Reiner’s inquiries could not legally be used, saying that the attorney-client relationship had been breached because Hamilton, after going to city attorney’s office for advice on conflict-of-interest laws, found himself the target of a city attorney’s investigation.

Clears Hamilton

State Atty. Gen. John Van de Kamp took over the investigation. He eventually cleared Hamilton of legal violations but did say that Hamilton had exercised questionable judgment.

In the police case, Reiner came under fire in 1983 for publicly criticizing LAPD’s Public Disorder Intelligence Division, which was accused of spying on law-abiding citizens. His office at that time was handling the defense of the Police Department as well as individual intelligence unit members. Under pressure, Reiner withdrew and the city hired private counsel at a cost of about $2 million.

Bernardi said Tuesday that he now is worried that the campaign contribution law may become a constant source of conflict for the city attorney’s office. Since the law passed last year by voters applies to all city elected officials, including Hahn, “I’m concerned we might get a rash of referrals to the D.A.’s office.”