Charges Won’t Be Filed in O.C. Poll Guard Case

After more than two years, county and federal investigators said Friday they will not file criminal charges against Orange County Republican officials in connection with the placement of uniformed guards at predominantly Latino polling places on Election Day in 1988.

In a joint statement, investigators said there was insufficient evidence “of an intent to intimidate voters” through the placement of guards, some holding signs in Spanish warning noncitizens that it was illegal to vote.

“The signs said noncitizens can’t vote and that’s true, that’s the law,” said Deputy Dist. Atty. Wallace J. Wade. “We had to find out what were the instructions given to the guards; we had to show that somebody was setting out to intimidate voters.

“When it came right down to it, we couldn’t say beyond a reasonable doubt that the intent of the people who sent out the guards was to intimidate voters,” he said.

The announcement ends a controversial joint investigation conducted by the Orange County district attorney’s office, the FBI and the U.S. Department of Justice. Critics had complained about the length of the probe, and they charged that the county’s Republican district attorney--Michael R. Capizzi--was biased.

Rueben Martinez, leader of a citizens’ group formed to seek a resolution of the so-called “poll-guard” case, said Friday he was disappointed by the announcement but not surprised.

“Only in Orange County,” said Martinez, a Democrat. “This makes me feel that the Republican Party can do just about anything they want in Orange County and get away with it. I say this was discrimination and they know in their minds they did something wrong.”

Thomas Fuentes, chairman of the county Republican Party, said that he was sorry the investigation took so long, but he was pleased with the outcome.

“The wheels of justice grind slowly, but it is rewarding to know that when it is all over, justice does prevail,” Fuentes said. “We have known from the start that there was never any violation of law, in fact or ever intended, and the brouhaha which ensued was purely the manipulated political effort of (Assembly Speaker) Willie Brown and his Democrat machine.”

The poll-guard case stems from the 1988 campaign of former Assemblyman Curt Pringle (R-Garden Grove). Republican officials, including Fuentes, said they hired the guards and posted them in the Santa Ana portion of the 72nd Assembly District because they believed Democrats were planning to bring busloads of ineligible voters to the polls there.

Pringle narrowly won that 1988 election, but he was unseated last year by Democrat Tom Umberg after a campaign in which the poll-guard case was an issue.

Pringle was unavailable for comment Friday.

The poll-guard case resulted in new California legislation that prohibits the placement of uniformed guards at polling places. It also generated a civil suit filed by five Latino voters who said they were intimidated by the guards.

Attorneys for the Republican Party and Pringle’s campaign settled the suit out of court for more than $400,000 in December, 1989.

Wade said Friday that federal and county investigators conducted a thorough investigation that included interviews with more than 50 witnesses. He also said the county investigation was nearly complete in late 1989, but new information developed during the civil suit extended the review until May, 1990.

At that point, Wade said, county prosecutors were “pretty sure” that there had been no violation of state laws. The case was then passed to Washington, where federal investigators spent the next year seeking to determine whether federal civil rights laws had been violated.

Two sections of the Justice Department were reviewing the case separately and, at one point earlier this year, a federal official erroneously reported that the case had been dropped.

Last September, the Justice Department also indicated it was not likely to file charges in the case after Rep. Jim Bates (D-San Diego) inquired about the lengthy investigation.

A Justice Department letter to Bates said: “It is becoming apparent to both (civil rights and criminal) divisions that it will be difficult to find a federal enforcement remedy for the sort of nonviolent patrolling of the exterior of polling precincts by private uniformed guards, such as that which appears to have taken place in Santa Ana.”

Federal officials were unavailable for comment Friday. A brief written statement from the Justice Department said simply: “It is our conclusion that the facts of this matter do not indicate that prosecutable violations of federal criminal laws dealing with voter intimidation took place.”