Two Tough Letter-Writers Square Off in the Mail

Attorney, hush thyself. Or: The brutality letters.

Everett L. Bobbitt is a San Diego attorney who represents police associations in San Diego, National City, Oceanside, El Cajon and Coronado, plus the Deputy Sheriff’s Assn.

He defends cops when they get accused of beating people up or otherwise abusing their authority.

He also writes a pretty tough in-your-face letter. Witness a recent missive to Dist. Atty. Edwin Miller, whose office has prosecuted some of Bobbitt’s clients of late.

Bobbitt writes that Miller has policies that are “contradictory and hypocritical.” He complains that prosecutors upbraid him for talking to reporters about pending cases (by claiming that violates legal ethics) while simultaneously blabbing to reporters themselves.

He says that one prosecutor even stretched out a preliminary hearing in a police brutality case after he spotted reporters in the audience:

“I suspect a great deal of time was spent in (the) hearing, by the prosecutor, to provide printable quotes from prosecution witnesses.”

He says he’ll be talking to the police associations he represents to see if they want to continue supporting Miller when he seeks reelection.

Miller, it turns out, writes a good in-your-face letter, too. He writes back to Bobbitt that his letter is “one of the strangest letters I have received in a long time.”

He says Bobbitt, in talking to reporters, routinely engages in disparaging comments about witnesses and “political diatribes” about conspiracies to vex cops.

As for the accusation that a prosecutor stretched out a prelim to get a headline, Miller calls that “stupid” and “teetering over the precipice of defamation.”

Miller says Bobbitt’s legal strategy is to imply that prosecution of “even the most roguish cop” is an attack on all cops:

“Those tactics seem to convey that thuggish behavior is accepted and condoned by police officers. I know that is not true; I wonder if you do.”

Don’t look for the Bobbitt-Miller mini-drama to conclude soon. Bobbitt on Tuesday sent a second letter.

In it, he tells Miller that he will continue talking to reporters, and he calls Miller’s letter “clearly slanderous and actionable in court.”

Words, Words, Words

The word (written, spoken and otherwise).

* Who says theater is going to the dogs?

The entire house for the Oct. 9 performance of “The Boardwalk Melody Hour Murders” at the Lake San Marcos Resort Conference has been bought out by the Poodle Club of America.

* The Hollywood Reporter plans a special section Oct. 30 on San Diego-as-moviemaking-capital.

* The Hotel del Coronado will be one of the sites for a “downlink” for the Sept. 16 Hollywood fund-raiser-concert for Bill Clinton featuring Barbra Streisand and Whoopi Goldberg.

For $10, you can watch on a big-screen TV.

* Forget “L.A. Law.” This is the real McCoy.

Superior Court Judge Norbert Ehrenfreund (and his brother-in-law Lawrence Treat, a veteran mystery writer) are out with the paperback, “You’re the Jury.”

Twelve real-life court cases, summarized, with diagrams and testimony. You decide the verdict.

Thursday night, Ehrenfreund (a former actor) goes to Warwick’s Books in La Jolla (7:30 p.m.) to do a dramatic reading of The State v. Carvalho , a murder case in which the battered-wife syndrome was used as a defense.

The names of all 12 cases have been changed, but San Diego readers will spot State v. Mayfield as the Craig Peyer case.

* Never enough Betty.

Due in bookstores in February: “Until the Twelfth of Never,” by Times reporter Bella Stumbo, an in-depth look at the Betty and Dan Broderick case.

Or Maybe It Was the Smell

It’s a tough city, really.

* A blind fan was spotted leaving San Diego Jack Murphy Stadium in the third quarter of the Chargers’ 24-10 loss to the Chiefs.

Leading another fan, to suggest that proves the Chargers sounded as bad as they looked .

* There goes the animal-lover vote.

“Impeach Pete Wilson” graffiti (in big letters) are reported in bathrooms at the San Diego Zoo.

* I’ve received two sightings of a transient in North Park with a sign, “Hell, Why Lie? I Just Want a Beer.”