D.A. Blames Budget Cuts in Rejecting Minor Cases : Justice: The agency’s misdemeanors unit is feeling the brunt of a $550,000 reduction. Police chiefs grumble about the development.

Since August, the Ventura County district attorney’s office has rejected more than 1,000 misdemeanor cases--ranging from expired driver’s licenses and unregistered vehicles to petty theft and vandalism--because of a lack of funding to prosecute them, officials said.

The cutbacks, which are Dist. Atty. Michael D. Bradbury’s newest attempt to solve his department’s budgetary woes, have left police chiefs throughout Ventura County grumbling.

The misdemeanors unit, which last year used its 24 attorneys to prosecute more than 29,000 cases, is feeling the brunt of the $550,000 cut from the D.A.’s budget by the County Board of Supervisors in August.

That cut has reduced the unit to 16 attorneys and forced prosecutors to focus on misdemeanors with a direct impact on public safety, such as drunk driving, domestic violence and drug-related crimes.

“We think we should be prosecuting all of these cases, but we just can’t afford to,” said Chief Deputy Dist. Atty. Vincent J. O’Neill Jr.

Of the 1,081 cases rejected, a majority involved driving on expired or restricted licenses. Drivers cited for these misdemeanors, as well as others whose misdemeanor charges were not prosecuted, received neither court summonses nor fines.

Assistant Dist. Atty. Colleen Toy White admitted that the policy could be problematic. “I can’t argue that if there’s some crime in the book and you don’t prosecute it, then you send some kind of message. And yes, it’s the wrong message to send.”

However, the D.A.’s office has advised law enforcement agencies countywide to keep informal records of rejected misdemeanors to target multiple or repeat offenders.

According to Deputy Dist. Atty. Edward F. Brodie, “if any of these agencies feel they have a case with a public safety imperative to it, they can come to our office, and we may make an exception to the rule against prosecuting.”

Many of the police chiefs interviewed expressed concern that public safety and officer morale will suffer because of the policy change, but at the same time said they supported Bradbury’s argument that curtailing misdemeanor prosecutions was the best solution in light of the department’s fiscal situation.

Last month, prosecutors were withdrawn from arraignment hearings in an attempt to use the department’s resources better. However, the move actually created larger caseloads and forced prosecutors back into the arraignments.

Assistant Sheriff Oscar Fuller said that about 200 misdemeanor cases filed by the Sheriff’s Department have been rejected since the policy went into effect, leading to what he termed justified frustration on the part of some deputies.

“They don’t understand why there’s insufficient resources to prosecute. They’re trying to do their job out there,” Fuller said.

The Oxnard Police Department has had about 140 misdemeanor cases rejected for budgetary reasons, Police Chief Robert T. Owen said.

Most of these cases involved unlicensed drivers or expired vehicle registrations, although some cases of shoplifting and public intoxication also went without prosecution.

Owen said the policy had not yet noticeably affected his officers, but would over time. “I think it’s going to erode the officers’ confidence. It may cause them to trivialize certain kinds of offenses,” he said.

Santa Paula Police Chief Walt Adair said it is demoralizing for an officer to “make an arrest and then fill out all the necessary paperwork, only to know that he’s done all this work and nothing is going to come back from it.”

Bradbury said he has spoken with a number of law enforcement officials since the policy change and is aware of the difficulties that the policy changes have caused.

“We share their frustration,” Bradbury said, but added that “it doesn’t take a rocket scientist to understand that when you lose over a third of your staff, you can’t do everything you used to do.”

None of the police chiefs interviewed said they had any plans to change the department’s arrest procedures or policies, despite the lack of prosecutions.

Simi Valley Police Chief Lindsey Paul Miller said it “would feel like a dereliction of duty” to do anything other than “continue to enforce all laws, as we have done in the past. We will continue to make arrests and issue citations, even for the cases the D.A. says he will not prosecute.”

Added Fuller: “We’re not going to change the way we do business. If an offense justifies an arrest, we’re going to make an arrest, regardless of whether the D.A. plans to file it.”

Ventura Police Chief Robert Thomas sought to avoid criticizing Bradbury’s handling of the budget crisis, but then said cutting misdemeanor prosecutions could trigger a domino effect.

“Even though the crimes the D.A. is unable to prosecute are lower-grade misdemeanors, they are nonetheless crimes. The people involved in these crimes are creating problems for the community we serve.

“This affects the quality of life in the community, the image of the community, and eventually the area’s economy. Businesses don’t want to be located in a city that appears to be crime-ridden,” Thomas said.