Public Defender Group Expected to Force Landon From Its Top Post

Trustees of a nonprofit corporation selected by San Diego County to represent indigents accused of crimes are expected to ask the firm’s executive director to step down today because of lingering doubts some politicians have expressed about his alleged role in a 1972 prison escape.

Attorney E. Miles Harvey, chairman of the board of trustees of Community Defenders Inc., said Wednesday that “political pressure” has made it impossible for the organization to fulfill its mission with Alex Landon at its helm.

“I don’t believe we can appear before the Board of Supervisors and negotiate a contract with this cloud hanging over Alex Landon’s head,” Harvey said. “We may wish that we could, but the fact is we are not politically naive and the handwriting is on the wall.”

Harvey said that replacing Landon has become all but unavoidable in the wake of comments by Supervisor George Bailey, one of three board members who voted to award the county’s indigent defense contract to Community Defenders. On Wednesday, Bailey said he would withdraw his support of the nonprofit defender firm if it is “handicapped” by Landon’s leadership.

“Having a director who is under attack before they even start means the program would have two strikes against it before getting on base,” Bailey said. “The point is he is still under a cloud. . . . I don’t think I can support a program under that handicap.”

Harvey said Community Defender trustees will take up the issue at a meeting today. He said he has discussed the matter with several fellow trustees and that they have reached a similar conclusion about Landon’s fate.

“Someone has been waging a war against us and against Alex,” Harvey said. “It’s a shame. But we have a fiduciary duty to the corporation to ensure that it completes its mission--to represent indigents in San Diego County. It appears that won’t be possible with Alex in charge and this suspicion hanging over him.”

Landon, 41, said he was reluctant to comment before discussing his future with trustees today. He did, however, say his first priority is to help Community Defenders achieve its goal of representing low-income defendants facing criminal charges.

“My position is that CDI was a program to provide high quality indigent defense for San Diego and I want to ensure that CDI is given an opportunity to provide those services,” Landon said.

A veteran public defender well-known in the San Diego legal community, Landon was selected by trustees more than a year ago to serve as Community Defenders’ top executive. In the months since then, he has been attacked by critics of the program raising questions about his alleged involvement in a prison break in Chino that left one guard shot to death and another wounded 16 years ago.

The allegations, brought to supervisors’ attention by Assemblyman Larry Stirling (R-San Diego), stem from the escape of Chino inmate Ronald Beaty. Beaty escaped when a vehicle being used to take him to a San Bernardino court hearing was forced off the road.

Court Testimony

In 1973, Beaty testified that Landon, who at the time was in private practice in San Diego and assisted inmates with legal problems, had smuggled jeweler’s blades in to him and had smuggled out plans for the escape. In the months preceding the breakout, 39 telephone calls were placed to Landon’s home and office from those involved in the escape.

Later, however, Beaty recanted, saying that Landon was at most an unwitting participant in the escape plot and carried out plans in a sealed envelope whose contents were unknown to him. No hacksaw blades were ever found.

Both the State Bar of California and the San Bernardino district attorney’s office conducted investigations into the allegations against Landon. No criminal charges were filed. The Department of Corrections, however, banned Landon from visiting state prisons, and that prohibition remains in force. At Stirling’s urging, the San Bernardino County district attorney has reopened a criminal investigation into the matter.

Landon has repeatedly denied any involvement in the escape.

In January, the Board of Supervisors voted 3 to 2 to award a three-year, $40-million contract to Community Defenders rather than create a traditional public defender’s office within the county bureaucracy. Soon afterward, Bailey--spurred by material from Stirling--asked trustees to conduct an independent investigation to dispel doubts about Landon being involved in the prison break.

The trustees hired former U.S. Atty. Terry Knoepp, who along with two former FBI agents spent two months examining old files and questioning witnesses. Knoepp’s report, released 10 days ago, concluded that there is insufficient evidence to link Landon to the crime but said the pattern of telephone calls between the defense attorney and those involved in the escape raises “disturbing questions.”

Letter of Complaint

Since then, Knoepp has sent Harvey a letter complaining about changes that trustees made in the report before forwarding it to supervisors. Harvey said the changes, which deleted Knoepp’s personal suspicion that Landon might by lying about his role in the episode, were made after some board members objected to the inclusion of such subjective opinions.

“He used language like ‘it was our impression’ or ‘we had the distinct impression,’ ” Harvey said. “One trustee in particular told him he was hired to investigate, evaluate and report and not to give us his impressions.”

Harvey added that deletions from the report were reviewed by Knoepp, who said he could “live with the changes” and who with Harvey personally delivered it to Supervisor Bailey.

Bailey said his concerns about a Landon-led Community Defenders have their base in history: “The last two public defender programs we’ve had failed mainly because of accusations against the people who were running them,” he said.

Without Bailey’s vote, trustees have realized, the nonprofit firm will not have a county contract.

Reached in Sacramento, Stirling downplayed the significance of Landon’s possible ouster and said supervisors’ chief concern should be the board of trustees, which he described as “untrustworthy” because of the changes made in Knoepp’s report.

‘Competent Attorney’

“Nobody argues that Mr. Landon is not a competent attorney and is not dedicated to the defense of criminals,” Stirling said. “Clearly he is. . . . What is much more relevant is the trustworthiness and credibility of that (CDI) board in excising and amending the report by an investigator they clearly hired for his reputation. If I were a supervisor, I wouldn’t grant the contract based on that alone.”

Harvey, meanwhile, repeated his contention that the accusations against Landon are “old news” that has been “dug up and blown incredibly out of proportion.” In a letter to Bailey earlier this month, Harvey said that Landon has been subjected to “McCarthyism in its meanest form” and charged that Stirling’s involvement was spurred by pressure from those opposed to the award of a contract to Community Defenders.

Landon had a similar comment Wednesday, saying Stirling’s conduct “was not done with any recognition of the principles on which this country was built, like presumption of innocence and due process.”

If trustees opt to replace Landon, Harvey said, the task will present “a tough, tough problem” at this stage--days before the Community Defenders contract is scheduled to go before the Board of Supervisors. Landon has spent hours drafting the contract and “working out an administrative plan” for the system, and the new director will have a lot of catching up to do, Harvey said.

He said four local attorneys--including Glenn Warren, second in command at Community Defenders--have been mentioned as possible replacements for Landon.

Times staff writer Daniel M. Weintraub in Sacramento contributed to this story.