CALIFORNIA ELECTIONS / GOVERNOR : Hillside Strangler Case Cited in Attack on Van de Kamp

Dianne Feinstein invoked the ghosts of the Hillside Strangler victims against John K. Van de Kamp on Wednesday, describing the torture deaths in the most graphic terms she has used to date and charging that “any vigorous prosecutor” would have pressed ahead when Van de Kamp decided not to prosecute one of the killers.

Framing the issue as indicative of a “mistake in judgment”--and thus fodder for their battle for the Democratic gubernatorial nomination--Feinstein said Van de Kamp’s handling of the infamous murder case marked the differences between the two on the issue of crime.

“Here was a sitting district attorney who had a case that involved terrible killings of 10 women. There was evidence, the evidence was presented; the decision was made not to prosecute on murder,” the former San Francisco mayor said at a Burbank press conference.

Van de Kamp, expecting that the case would be used against him for political advantage, has already described his 1981 decision not to prosecute Angelo Buono on murder charges as “an error.” At the time, Van de Kamp--now the state attorney general--was Los Angeles County district attorney.

In recommending that Buono be prosecuted for sex crimes but not for murder, Van de Kamp said he was agreeing with prosecutors concerned about the reliability of Kenneth Bianchi--who had pleaded guilty to five murders and was the key witness against his cousin, Buono. The alternative, Van de Kamp said, was to risk losing the case and denying prosecutors the chance to try Buono later with perhaps more evidence. Ultimately, then-Atty. Gen. George Deukmejian’s office took up the case and Buono was convicted.

Feinstein has remarked on the Hillside Strangler case before, but never in such strong terms. It was also a contrast to recent weeks, when she and Van de Kamp had kept their bickering to a minimum after Feinstein began running advertisements calling on them to “put negative politics behind us.” That ad, which compared Van de Kamp to Richard Nixon, followed a commercial by Van de Kamp that criticized Feinstein’s mayoral record.

Asked how she could determine that Van de Kamp should have proceeded with the murder charges--Feinstein is not a lawyer--the former San Francisco mayor said it was “because of the nature of the cases.”

“I mean, these were two people who went out, who began with prostitutes, who utilized a highway patrol badge fraudulently to pick up women, brought them back, bound them, gagged them, tied them up, spread-eagled them, raped them and strangled them,” Feinstein said. “Then as they raped them, they would strangle them into unconsciousness, revive them and strangle them again and take them out and dump them.

“They tired of that and they went for other women. Then they went for youngsters,” she added. “Certainly asking for a vigorous prosecution is not asking too much.”

Van de Kamp’s campaign issued a terse response.

“Unlike Mrs. Feinstein, John Van de Kamp has spent 25 years prosecuting criminals, he’s put 90,000 felons behind bars and helped put away the Night Stalker and members of the Charlie Manson gang,” said the attorney general’s press secretary, Duane Peterson.

“His record may not be perfect; it’s just the best of any candidate running for governor.”

The blast from Feinstein occurred when she was asked to delineate the differences between herself and Van de Kamp as she picked up the endorsement of the 6,000-member California Organization of Police and Sheriffs.

The law enforcement organization’s president, Don Brown, said a key reason for the group’s endorsement is Feinstein’s support of the death penalty. Van de Kamp is personally opposed to the death penalty, but he has said he will enforce it as the law of the state.

“The death penalty is very important,” said Brown, whose group endorsed Van de Kamp for attorney general in 1982.

In her remarks, Feinstein also called for a return to indeterminate sentencing for violent criminals--ironically, using the same criticisms that spawned the change to determinate sentencing in 1977. Indeterminate sentences set broad parameters of penalties--for example, seven years to life. Determinate sentences set a specific time frame, but Feinstein argued that the sentence is undercut by time taken off for good behavior and work.

“It lets people out whom I believe would not be let out under an indeterminate sentence and it lets out people who are a risk to society,” she said of the current system.

Among the rationales for changing the system was that because of the latitude given the prison system, some prisoners were being let out earlier than critics contended they should.

Feinstein this year has suggested a slew of sentence-stiffeners that would mean jail for more people, but she declined Wednesday to say how much money she would commit to prisons to house the swelling population.

“I don’t commit to any specific amount of money nor can I,” she said. “It is extraordinarily difficult. I do commit to try to keep the prison bond issues moving on a regular basis.”