Court Says Ex-Judge Can Subpoena Data on Sheriff

A judge Wednesday agreed to let an attorney for former judge Joanne Harrold subpoena the state attorney general’s records on Orange County Sheriff Brad Gates.

Harrold is battling charges that she falsified information about her status as an Orange County resident when she ran for office in 1984.

The Orange County district attorney’s office has already turned over its files on Gates to Harrold’s lawyer, James P. Stotler. Central Municipal Judge James P. Gray overruled the attorney general’s objections that the state office was exempt from the court’s earlier ruling.

Harrold says she is the victim of vindictive prosecution.

She also contends that she didn’t do anything that other candidates for public office haven’t done, including Gates, Rep. Robert K. Dornan (R-Garden Grove) and several other judges. Stotler told the court that he needed the attorney general’s files on Gates and anything the attorney general might have on Dornan and several other officials to prepare for Harrold’s trial next month.

The attorney general’s office investigated Gates in his 1986 election after allegations that he filed a false statement of residency. The sheriff was moving from one house to another during the election, and opponents claimed that he filled out the required candidacy forms with the wrong address. But both the district attorney’s office and the attorney general’s office cleared Gates of any wrongdoing.

Harrold easily won a bid to retain her Municipal Court seat in 1984. But a judge threw out the election results and removed her from the bench after finding that she had lived in Riverside County, not at the Newport Beach address that she listed. A few months later, the Orange County Grand Jury indicted her on similar charges. She now faces two misdemeanor counts--one alleging that she filed a false declaration of candidacy and another for backdating a deed to the house in Newport Beach that her grandmother gave her.