Bird Drives Home a Point in ‘Dialogue’

California Chief Justice Rose Elizabeth Bird told a warmly supportive group of senior citizens Friday that she has never voted for or against the death penalty but, instead, ruled on the constitutionality of trial proceedings in death penalty cases.

“I think it would surprise the majority of voters to learn that I’ve never voted against the death penalty. I’ve never voted for it. None of us sit there and vote for or against it,” Bird told about 40 members of a neighborhood current affairs group who had gathered to hear her at the Wachs Senior Multi-Purpose Center in North Hollywood.

“We’re just trying our very best to ensure that when someone is executed that it was done not to reelect a judge . . . not because some special interest wanted it but because the person received a fair trial and should be executed under the law.”

It was the first time during her campaign for reconfirmation that Bird has met with such a small group of people, and the occasion was billed by her campaign staff as fulfillment of a pledge she made last spring to hold a “dialogue with the people.” Speaking extemporaneously and forcefully, the chief justice gave a 15-minute talk that touched on several campaign themes and then invited questions from the audience.

As she has done throughout the campaign, Bird accused her opponents of misrepresenting the court’s opinions, but she avoided any discussion of the rulings, instead inviting members of her audience to read the cases and see what the court had to say.

Surrounding her in a semicircle of folding chairs, Bird’s audience was effusively supportive, never challenging her and at one point presenting her with a small bouquet of roses. One of the questions she was asked repeatedly was why she has not sued her critics.

Bird replied good-naturedly that the courts have too many lawsuits to contend with.

During the 45 minutes Bird spent with the group, she said she did not believe that the court’s record of reversing death penalties was the real motivation behind her opponents’ campaign.

“I don’t think this election is about the death penalty at all,” Bird said. “It’s about something very different. It’s about power and who’s going to wield it. It’s about an institution and who’s going to run it. It’s about whether you are going to have judges who are independent and who follow the law . . . or whether we’re going to have sycophants sitting there who have prerecorded messages inside (telling) them exactly how to vote before they ever look at the issues.”

Bird, whose car was burglarized recently, said that she and the other members of the Supreme Court were very concerned about crime and sympathized with the fears of the public. But she said she did not think changing the makeup of the court would make people safer.

“I don’t think any changes that are going to come, if they come in terms of the judiciary, are going to make anybody any safer.”

Bird, whose opponents have employed several professional political consultants, repeated a criticism she has made frequently during the campaign that the political process has been corrupted by consultants who, she says, build campaigns around distortions and superficialities.