Poll Shows Public Leery of Duffy’s Motives

Most San Diegans believe that Sheriff John Duffy decided not to run for reelection because he felt he could not win or because he wanted to avoid additional press scrutiny, not--as he has said--out of fear for his family’s safety, a Times poll shows.

The poll also found that most San Diegans strongly disagree with Duffy about the propriety of recent news media inquiries about the personal security system at his house and other related matters, the poll found. While Duffy has angrily characterized such queries as an invasion of his privacy, most San Diegans polled believe that the public has a right to know, for example, whether tax dollars helped finance his home security system and why sheriff’s deputies respond to his security alarm even though he lives in another police jurisdiction.

Overall, however, San Diegans are divided on whether the local news media are biased against Duffy. Forty percent of those polled said they believe that Duffy has not been treated fairly by the news media, the same number who said the news media “are fair in their treatment” of Duffy.

The poll also found that Duffy’s job-approval rating has dropped since an earlier Times poll in April, when the sheriff received a 36%-20% favorable rating. Now, 38% of countywide residents disapprove of Duffy’s performance, while 32% approve of it and 30% are undecided.

“Despite the sheriff’s protestations, the public isn’t buying a lot of what he says,” said Times pollster I. A. Lewis. “In general, they’re suspect of his motives and explanations.”

A sheriff’s spokesman did not return a call from The Times for comment on the poll Saturday.

The Times poll also revealed that the public is largely undecided about the four major candidates seeking to succeed Duffy, and that the sheriff’s endorsement of one of his would-be successors is unlikely to influence how most people vote next year.

The Times poll is based on telephone interviews conducted Friday of 694 people throughout San Diego County. The poll’s margin of sampling error is plus or minus 5 percentage points.

Because The Times has been so closely identified with the recent controversy surrounding Duffy and his decision not to seek reelection, the poll’s interviewers identified themselves as being affiliated with the “I.A. Lewis Poll” so as not to influence the respondents’ impartiality. Two weeks ago, Duffy received a temporary court order, later rescinded, blocking The Times from publishing information about his home security system, and when he announced last week that he would not seek a sixth term, he singled out The Times for sharp criticism, charging that it had driven him from office.

As Duffy found himself facing increasing criticism in recent months over matters ranging from his private consulting work to his insistence that deputies patrol his personal residence, even though it is within the City of San Diego limits, he often described news stories on those and related subjects as improper inquiries into areas that violated his privacy rights.

However, most of those polled--an overwhelming 87% in the case of whether public funds may have been used in Duffy’s home security system--said they believe that the public has a legitimate right to know about such matters. By a 53%-33% margin, San Diegans agreed that the question of why sheriff’s deputies cross jurisdictional lines to respond to alarms at Duffy’s Scripps Ranch house is “a legitimate issue for coverage in the press.”

The poll also shows that many San Diegans question Duffy’s stated reasons for objecting to news stories on such subjects. While the sheriff contends, for example, that his family’s safety was jeopardized by a Times reporter asking questions about whether public funds or property were used to build a possible “safe room” in his house--from which he could direct his deputies during an emergency--many San Diegans believe that political motivations also colored Duffy’s thinking.

To date, no stories about Duffy’s purported “safe room” have been written by The Times or any other local news media. The only stories dealing with the subject have focused on the sheriff’s court battle to prevent any such articles from being written, and have only described the questions The Times was asking as a prelude to determining whether, in fact, a detailed story would, in fact, be printed.

Duffy has vehemently denied using public funds for his home security system, and contends that the only weapons and other county equipment at his house are assigned to him in accordance with his official duties.

Asked why they believe Duffy sought the court restraining order barring The Times from writing about his home security measures, 47% of those polled said they believe that he did so to “silence an embarrassing newspaper story about his personal finances.” Forty percent accepted Duffy’s explanation that he went to court to protect his family’s safety, while 13% were undecided.

Similarly, the public also expressed doubts about whether concern over his family’s security was, as Duffy claims, the major reason behind his surprising announcement last week that he will retire when his term expires in January, 1991.

Indeed, only 13% agreed that he made that decision because he feared for his family’s safety, while more than two-thirds of those polled said they believe that Duffy’s plan to step down in 13 months stems primarily from other factors. Thirty-eight percent, for example, said they believe Duffy decided to drop out of next year’s sheriff’s race “because he wanted to avoid additional scrutiny,” and another 31% attributed his decision to concern that he would not be reelected.

With the primary in the race to elect Duffy’s successor still more than six months away, the poll found that there is no clear front-runner in that contest and that most San Diegans--60%--are undecided on how they might vote next June. Among the major announced candidates, Assistant Sheriff Jack Drown was the choice of 12% of those polled and Sheriff’s Capt. Jim Roache drew 11% support, followed by Escondido Police Chief Vince Jimno with 8% and former San Diego Police Chief Ray Hoobler with 6%.

Duffy’s endorsement of Drown is not likely to influence most voters’ attitudes toward Drown, as evidenced by the poll’s finding that 56% said that the sheriff’s backing would not affect their vote. However, among those who said that Duffy’s endorsement would influence their decision, people who said that it would make them less likely to vote for Drown outnumbered by a 3-to-1 margin (25% to 8%) those who said that it would make them more favorably inclined toward the assistant sheriff.

Though San Diegans felt that recent news stories scrutinizing Duffy’s conduct dealt with subjects of legitimate public interest, they were less certain whether the news media have treated the sheriff fairly overall, the poll showed. Among those who believe that the news media’s treatment of Duffy has been slanted, a heavily lopsided margin argued that the perceived bias results in Duffy looking worse, rather than better, than he is.

Forty percent of those polled said they believe that the news media “are fair in their treatment” of Duffy, the same percentage as those who feel that the sheriff has received unfairly negative coverage. In contrast, only 3% of those polled said that the news media make Duffy “look better than he is.”

Not surprisingly, people’s attitudes about whether the press has treated Duffy fairly--and the credence they give Duffy’s complaints about the recent news stories--varied according to how they feel about the sheriff in general, with his supporters being more critical of the news media than his opponents. The sheriff’s skeptics, meanwhile, were less willing to accept his expressions of concern over his family’s safety as the reason why he tried to block certain news stories and decided not to run for reelection.

For example, 58% of Duffy’s supporters said they believe that he sought the restraining order barring The Times from printing stories about his home security system to protect his family, compared to 28% who said they believe his primary motivation was simply to block an embarrassing new story. Among those who gave Duffy an unfavorable job rating, however, the pattern was reversed, with 66% believing that the sheriff was seeking to head off unfavorable publicity and only 23% seeing his action as related to fears for his family’s safety.

Even Duffy’s partisans disagreed with the sheriff on the key question of whether the public has a right to know the answers to some questions about his home security system. Seventy-seven percent of those who gave Duffy a favorable job rating also said that the public has a right to know whether public funds were used in Duffy’s “safe room,” compared to 93% among Duffy’s opponents.

POLL QUESTIONS

1. By getting a restraining order to block newspaper stories about his home security system, do you think Sheriff John Duffy was trying to protect his family’s safety, or do you think he was trying to silence an embarrassing newspaper story about his personal finances?

* Silence an embarrassing story: 47%

* Protect his family: 40%

* Don’t know: 13%

2. After the restraining order was lifted, Duffy decided not to run for reelection. Do you think he made that decision because he feared for his family’s safety, because he feared he could not get reelected, because he wanted to avoid additional scrutiny, or what?

* Avoid additional scrutiny: 38%

* Worried he could not get reelected: 31%

* Fears for family’s safety: 13%

* Don’t know: 11%

* Other: 7%

3. Sometimes, the news media are accused of being biased for or against certain people. Do you think that the media are fair in their treatment of Duffy, or do you think they make him look better than he is, or make him look worse than he is?

* Fair: 40%

* Make look worse: 40%

* Make look better: 3%

* Don’t know: 17%

Source: Los Angeles Times Poll