D.A.’s Death Penalty Arbiter to Quit Post : Justice system: Curt Livesay says he will now switch sides and work as criminal defense lawyer. Reiner says it will be tough replacing 25-year veteran.

The longtime No. 3 person in the nation’s largest district attorney’s office is leaving his post--to become a criminal defense lawyer.

Los Angeles County Assistant Dist. Atty. Curt Livesay, who has decided whether prosecutors sought the death penalty in more than 1,000 murder cases, plans to stay until next March.

The veteran prosecutor, who has worked under five district attorneys in his 25-year career, says he wanted to give his boss, Dist. Atty. Ira Reiner, plenty of time to think about his replacement.

“I just turned 50 last month, and 25 years is just a nice round number for a career, I think,” he said. “It’s the right time to end this stage and go to something else.”

His departure, Livesay said, is unrelated to Reiner’s recent loss in the state attorney general’s race or a rumored imminent shake-up of administrators in the prosecutor’s office.

Livesay said he may “associate with some defense attorneys (or) do criminal defense in the tax area just for a change of pace.” He trained as an accountant before going to UCLA law school.

Reiner said that Livesay has said repeatedly that he wanted to leave his post. Last month, when Livesay broached the subject again, Reiner said, “he sort of announced it as a fait accompli so no one would talk him out of it. It’s official.”

Calling Livesay “the bricks and mortar of the (criminal courts) building,” and his departure “unfortunate,” Reiner said he will be difficult to replace for myriad reasons, including that Livesay has been the office’s arbiter on death penalty cases for 11 years.

Defense attorneys, who have consistently praised Livesay’s sense of fairness in seeking capital punishment decisions, voiced similar concerns.

“I don’t see how another person can reconstruct what Curt has done over the last 10 years,” said attorney Gigi Gordon of Santa Monica. “Now we will have to rely for decisions on who lives and who dies on an unknown person’s morality.”

Wilbur F. Littlefield, the county’s chief public defender, said, “He has a very reasoned approach and he listens to people. . . . He’s going to be very difficult to replace.”

Livesay agrees that his could be a hard act to follow.

“The real problem, and it’s a practical problem, is that the person would have to read and digest the thousand cases that have been decided up until now in order to make it a meaningful comparative process. . . . Some of my colleagues, I hope good-naturedly, say that Livesay has parlayed an onerous, difficult task into a bullet-proof Civil Service career.”

Asked about switching sides after a quarter of a century, Livesay said, “I believe the very best prosecutors and very best defense attorneys could be either. This is, in my view, merely a position of advocacy. I’ve had a very sensitive, capable, intelligent client for 25 years--the people of California.”

In fact, several years ago, explaining his neutral stance on capital punishment and the manner in which he makes his decisions in murder cases, Livesay mused, “Sometimes I think I could just as easily be an advocate for the defendant as I am for the prosecution.”

He almost was. Livesay received job offers from both the district attorney’s office and the public defender’s office only hours apart on the same day in 1965. Livesay said he took the prosecutor’s post because it was offered first.

“It was just a matter of four hours’ difference,” Livesay said.

Livesay, who describes himself as “just a country boy from the hills of eastern Oklahoma,” climbed the prosecutorial career ladder quickly. He worked as a trial deputy, head deputy in the juvenile division, and director of the Bureau of Central Operations before being named to replace Stephen S. Trott as chief deputy district attorney in August, 1979.

Shortly after the restoration of capital punishment in California in 1977, Livesay took control of the death penalty review process, earning the nickname “Dr. Death.” In cases where he has decided not to seek the death penalty, his eagerly awaited memos to defense attorneys announcing his decisions became known as “Livesay letters.”

During the past two years, Livesay’s reputation was buffeted for the first time as a result of the county’s jailhouse informant scandal. Livesay, critics said, authorized underlings to help arrange several questionable releases of informant Leslie White, who later admitted repeatedly committing perjury in court cases.

“I think (Livesay) is a moral and fair man, but I was disappointed at what I learned about his involvement,” said Gordon, a spokeswoman for a defense lawyers’ group that has sought reforms in the use of informants.

Livesay, who lives with his wife, Biserka, in San Pedro, said he once had hoped to end the long commute and round out his career with a few years in the Long Beach office, where he spent the first decade of his career.

“I’m giving up that part of the plan,” he said. “My age and number of years of service all come together at a good point. This gives me (at least) five years to try cases.”