Plea Policy Effective but No Bargain

Many California prosecutors allow widespread plea bargaining, letting defendants plead guilty to reduced charges so the busy courts can avoid trial costs and control heavy case backlogs.

Not Ventura County Dist. Atty. Michael D. Bradbury, whose policy against plea bargaining in most cases forces criminal trials in Ventura County at more than twice the statewide rate.

Sheriff John V. Gillespie said the policy is one of the cornerstones in a tough approach to crime by local law enforcement officials that has helped make Ventura County one of the safest counties of its size in the nation.

However, Public Defender Kenneth I. Clayman said it forces the county to pay for unnecessary trials and, in at least 50% of the cases, results in no harsher punishment than plea bargaining would have achieved.

The only result, he said, is that “innocent people get afraid.”

Steven J. Stone, presiding justice of the state 2nd District Court of Appeal, is another who questions some of the results that have come with Bradbury’s tough approach to plea bargains.

Bradbury “wants very much to follow the law, but he’s prepared to press it in the courts . . . occasionally to the breaking point,” Stone said. “He has faced reversals on appeal in major cases, because he got the kitchen sink in, and it was inappropriate.”

Retired appeals Justice Richard W. Abbe agreed.

“It’s costing the taxpayers of Ventura County vast sums of money,” Abbe said. “He takes a position and fails to obtain the kind of verdict he’s really out for.”

Bradbury said Abbe “doesn’t know what he’s talking about. He’s been in his ivory tower, and he knows nothing about my office.”

Some civil lawsuits in the county have dragged on for five years without resolution, partly because judges who could try them are working instead on criminal trials caused by Bradbury’s policy, said Court Executive Officer Sheila Gonzalez.

Extra trials mean extra court time. And the average courtroom costs $3,593 per day to operate, said Vince Ordonez, deputy court executive officer.

Bradbury said his policy does not appreciably affect the civil caseload, because only six of the Superior Court’s 15 judges hear criminal trials, while the rest hear civil, juvenile and family cases.

Richard Iglehart, former head of the criminal division of the state attorney general’s office, said the county’s conviction and imprisonment rates are the highest of the 11 most populous counties in California.

“You can’t say that’s happening without Mike having an influence on it,” he said.

By all accounts, the no-plea-bargaining policy is not ironclad.

“They plea bargain every single day of the week over there,” said Mark S. Borrell, recent president of the county Criminal Defense Lawyers Assn. “I think it’s posturing.”

Bradbury conceded that about 20% of misdemeanors and a much smaller percentage of felonies end in pleas to lesser charges.

Here are cases in which the public defender’s office says the no-plea-bargaining policy failed, resulting either in acquittal of defendants who were willing to plead guilty or in a waste of court time:

* Jennifer Crockett, accused of luring a fellow restaurant employee home, where two of her male friends beat him with a baseball bat and robbed him. Prosecutors demanded a guilty plea to armed robbery, refusing her offer to admit to the lesser crime of accessory to robbery. On May 5, 1990, a jury convicted the two men of robbery and other charges but acquitted Crockett.

* Peter Bergne, accused of trying to rape, and then strangling a mentally ill woman who spurned his advances on their fifth date. Prosecutors rejected his offer of a guilty plea to second-degree murder and prosecuted him for first-degree murder and attempted rape. Instead, Bergne was convicted April 23, 1990, of second-degree murder--which he had offered to admit to before the two-week trial--and sentenced to 15 years to life.

* Arthur Finnegan, accused of breaking into an acquaintance’s home and raping her. Prosecutors rejected his offer of a guilty plea to trespassing and sexual battery, and took him to trial for residential burglary and rape. On Oct. 24, 1990, a jury acquitted Finnegan on both counts.

“The district attorney has the ability under the law to use his discretion to try to convict people of only what they deserve,” said Deputy Public Defender Duane Dammeyer. “In some cases, the theory is, ‘Let’s try to convict the person for the most serious charge we could foresee under any set of facts.’ ”

Chief Deputy Dist. Atty. Kevin J. McGee said the prosecution loses some cases because the evidence is insufficient to convince the jury. But he said the office is committed to the policy, even in most cases when evidence is weak.

“It doesn’t mean we don’t ever back off once we have new evidence or make a new filing,” McGee said. “We do continually analyze the case up to the moment the jury’s impaneled.”

Here are three cases in which the district attorney’s refusal to accept negotiated pleas won convictions and stiff sentences:

* Napoleon Barber, accused of twice choking his wife with a telephone cord during a sexual bondage session. His attorney offered a guilty plea to charges of assault with a deadly weapon, which would have carried a maximum penalty of four years. Barber was convicted July 30, 1990, of premeditated murder with use of a deadly weapon and was sentenced Dec. 14 to eight years to life in prison.

* Clarence Garrett III, accused of beating and sexually assaulting two Oxnard women. Prosecutors refused his offer to plead guilty to unpremeditated attempted murder, which would have carried a maximum nine-year prison sentence. Garrett was convicted in July, 1989, of two counts each of assault with a deadly weapon, premeditated attempted murder, rape and an enhancement for doing great bodily injury. He received two consecutive life prison sentences in August, 1989.

* Stephen Anderson, accused of shooting his friend’s mother in the back after an argument as they drove to visit her son in jail. His attorney offered a guilty plea to second-degree murder, which carried a maximum penalty of 15 years to life. Anderson was convicted of first-degree murder on Oct. 12, 1988, and sentenced Nov. 9 to 25 years to life in prison.

“In each case,” McGee said, “you have individuals who obviously, by their conduct, demonstrated themselves to be very dangerous people. Because of the no-plea-bargaining policy, they’re in prison today for substantially longer periods of time than they would be otherwise.”