Sheriff Has Only Himself to Blame for Media Scrutiny

The media scrutiny that Sheriff John Duffy blames for driving him from office did not occur in a vacuum; it was brought on by his own actions.

Even a cursory look at his career reveals repeated management and judgment problems. His frequent response to criticism has been to deny the problem and attack his critics, the media or both. But courts and grand juries have repeatedly taken him to task.

This was the sheriff who fought affirmative action until a court ordered it.

After Duffy used public employees to campaign against former California Chief Justice Rose Elizabeth Bird, he and an aide were forced to personally pay $33,796 in legal fees to the American Civil Liberties Union, which challenged this illegal political activity. The fees were then paid with loans that Duffy did not initially report on his financial disclosure forms. Such actions invite scrutiny.

When accusations were made that deputies were abusing jail inmates, Duffy denied the allegations and then attacked his critics and the press. Brutality allegations invite scrutiny. And, in fact, Duffy asked the county grand jury to look into them.

The grand jury concluded that some inmates had been abused and that there was a “Rambo squad” of deputies in the El Cajon jail operating virtually out of control. It said that the failure to thoroughly investigate the accusations showed a lack of leadership. And this was not the first grand jury to criticize Duffy’s management of the jails.

The allegations of abuse and lax supervision prompted The Times to ask to see Duffy’s appointment calendars. He fought the request. He lost the legal battle, and The Times learned from his calendars that he was frequently absent from work. Then The Times learned that he had had several outside consulting jobs, which he had earlier denied, and had failed to report them on his financial disclosure forms.

All of these incidents damaged Duffy’s credibility. And the less credibility an elected official has, particularly one who has as tough and powerful a job as sheriff, the more questions the press must ask. That is what The Times did when it received information about a possibly extraordinary home security system.

Duffy tried to halt The Times’ scrutiny of his security precautions, arguing that any revelation would endanger him and his family. After the court dissolved a temporary restraining order on grounds that the sheriff’s argument was insufficient to justify a prior restraint on the press, Duffy announced that he wouldn’t seek reelection.

We’ll probably never know if that is the real reason why Duffy decided not to run for a sixth term. An equally plausible possibility is that he was facing a formidable challenge from already announced candidates with law enforcement management experience.

But even if, as Duffy suggests, it was media scrutiny that ended his career, that scrutiny was the consequence of his untruths, his absences, his poor management and his arrogance.