D.A. Capizzi’s Prosecutors to Aid Campaign; Enright Angry

Chief Deputy Dist. Atty. James G. Enright on Friday assailed his boss, Dist. Atty. Michael R. Capizzi, for using deputy prosecutors in a planned door-to-door campaign this weekend in the kickoff of their two-man race for the office’s top seat.

“It’s highly, highly questionable,” Enright said. “In this case, love and devotion (to the boss) looks more like retention and promotion.”

The prosecutors, however, say their efforts, which begin today, are strictly voluntary and that Capizzi had to be persuaded to let them help him. One leader of the Capizzi campaign, Fountain Valley attorney Bruce C. Bridgman, called Enright “a jerk” for trying to make it a campaign issue.

The political jabs came on the eve of the beginning of Enright’s and Capizzi’s fall campaign for district attorney. Both candidates are longtime adversaries within the district attorney’s office.

Enright, 63, a last-minute candidate for the district attorney’s race in the June primary, surprised everyone by garnering enough votes in a four-man race to force Capizzi, the top vote-getter, into a Nov. 6 runoff.

Capizzi, 50, responded on Friday that he has made it clear to all the office employees who volunteered--nearly 75 prosecutors and almost that many investigators--that there was no pressure to participate.

“So many people wanted to help, I finally decided it would be insensitive to their concerns for the future of the office not to let them get involved,” Capizzi said.

But Enright said prosecutors going door to door for the boss should not be acceptable to the voters.

“You wash the boss’s car on Saturday and then the deputy sitting next to you says, ‘Hmm, maybe he could use a wax job too,’ ” Enright said. “It is wrong for appearances. If the deputy who walks precincts gets promoted and the deputy who stays home doesn’t, it’s just very bad for the office.”

But one of the deputy prosecutors who volunteered, Guy N. Ormes, said Capizzi was reluctant to let them participate.

“A lot of us wanted to help him out before (in the June primary), but Mike asked us not to,” Ormes said. “We’re going out there because we want to see him win.”

Gregg Prickett, another deputy prosecutor, said he feels no pressure at all to help Capizzi. “Just the opposite is true,” he added. “Those of us who are going out there have had to take some razzing within the office about (currying favor with Capizzi). But (Capizzi) represents the values I believe a D.A. should have. Why shouldn’t the public have a right to know?”

Not all the deputy prosecutors volunteered. One, who asked not to be named, said he would never walk a precinct for either candidate.

“I’m a professional prosecutor,” he said. “I’m here to do a job.”

And Tom Borris, a former prosecutor who recently left the district attorney’s office, said at Enright’s open house in Santa Ana on Friday night that he was offended when Bridgman called him and asked him if he wanted to walk precincts for Capizzi.

“I think it stinks,” Borris said.

Bridgman said that he tried to contact only those deputy prosecutors who had indicated either to him or others that they wanted to help Capizzi.

“We tried to do this without creating any friction within the office,” Bridgman said. “We tried hard not to impact deputies not in the campaign.”

For example, he said, he deliberately did not ask any of the prosecutors who work on the homicide panel, because that has long been Enright’s area within the office. Several homicide prosecutors contacted said they preferred to stay out of the race altogether.

The Capizzi volunteers are scheduled to walk precincts throughout the county for the next nine weekends before the election.

Capizzi added that he has stood firm by his decision before the June primary not to let any of his deputies make any financial contributions to his campaign. But Enright, Capizzi said, accepted a $1,000 contribution from Assistant Dist. Atty. Edgar A. Freeman.

Enright responded that it’s an unfair comparison, because he’s not in charge of the office the way Capizzi is in charge of the deputies in his campaign.

During the primary, Enright had called Capizzi the “politician’s candidate.” Capizzi was appointed district attorney in January by the County Board of Supervisors when longtime Dist. Atty. Cecil Hicks accepted a judgeship.

Enright and his supporters claim that Hicks planned his early retirement from office in an effort to give Capizzi a leg up on the other candidates in the primary.

Capizzi chose not to respond to Enright in that campaign. But his failure to retain his seat outright in the June election may have forced some changes in campaign strategy. He switched political consultants, and decided on a door-to-door campaign instead of his June strategy of relying on mailers.

In a statement released by his campaign office this week, Capizzi said: “It’s too easy to sit back and send mass mailers. We think political campaigns should be on a person-to-person basis.”

At Enright’s open house Friday, Capizzi’s use of deputies was a major topic.

Villa Park attorney William A. Dougherty compared it to the old rule in the military: “You don’t have to do it; it’s compulsory.”

Enright added that the pressure is not so much on those deputies who volunteered, but on those who did not.

“You would never have seen this in a Kenny Williams office,” Enright said. Williams, who was district attorney before Cecil Hicks, has endorsed Enright’s candidacy.