It May Not Be Politics as Usual Under New D.A.

Dist. Atty. Gil Garcetti’s inaugural speech Monday raised hopes that we now have a D.A. who’ll earn his pay.

I’m speaking of a statement that took only a couple of seconds, one of several pledges he made to a large audience in the Board of Supervisors hearing room. But if Garcetti keeps his word, Los Angeles County won’t be the same. For he said he plans to prosecute misconduct in office by public officials.

Such a pledge shouldn’t be news. You expect prosecutors to investigate public officials suspected of being crooks and, if the charges are warranted, to nail them. In Los Angeles County, however, the concept is revolutionary.

In the 22 years I’ve been writing about this place, I’ve watched in amazement, often in rage, as one district attorney after another ducked repeated opportunities to investigate political corruption.

It’s been the feds--the U.S. Department of Justice--who have had the guts and skill to take on shady, well-connected pols.

Years of news stories laid out a detailed road map of the way state Sen. Alan Robbins mixed his public duties and private business dealings. But, although many of his activities took place in Los Angeles County, the U.S. attorney’s office in Sacramento, not the L.A. County D.A., developed the case that led Robbins to plead guilty to racketeering and tax evasion.

The same federal office is prosecuting former coastal commissioner and political insider Mark L. Nathanson, accused of shaking down celebrities who needed permits to add on to their Malibu homes. Nathanson’s activities took place right here in L.A. County, right here in the jurisdiction of the L.A. County D.A.

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As Garcetti delivered his inaugural in the county supervisors’ chambers, he didn’t look like someone ready to take on the L.A. County system.

He stood out from an audience that was dominated by the street-smart, the defense attorneys and prosecutors who mix it up each day in the county’s courtrooms. Although Garcetti has worked in the D.A’s office his entire professional life and fought in those courtrooms, he appeared a bit apart from the crowd, too well-groomed, too refined, his appearance a little too perfect.

But he also showed a less controlled side. During his inaugural speech, his voice broke and he couldn’t continue when he started to describe how his father had been mugged three times. He paused a couple of other times too, overcome with the emotion of the occasion.

But a Garcetti adviser, Karl Fleming, warned me against thinking this was a sign of weakness. Fleming, a former television news executive and Newsweek’s Los Angeles bureau chief, teaches politicians and other public figures how to look good on television. Garcetti is one of his clients.

Don’t be misled by that elegant, sensitive demeanor, Fleming said. “He’s tough.” And he’s a workaholic. “After the election, he called me up and said he was going on vacation,” Fleming said. “I asked him how long? He said two days.”

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No matter how tough Garcetti is, the system works against the district attorney’s office becoming a militant prosecutor of political corruption.

One reason is that the D.A. is part of the local political structure, buddies with other pols and is dependent on them for advancement. Los Angeles County district attorney is a good launching pad job, and the occupants tend to avoid hurting contributors and other pols who might help them later.

Another reason is the sheer volume of work confronting D.A.’s offices in L.A. and other urban California counties. Murders, robberies, burglaries, rapes, assaults and other crimes that overwhelm the prosecutors. If the case looks strong, the district attorney’s office files charges. If the case seems shaky, the D.A. tells the cops to release the suspects. The office likes sure winners.

In other words, the D.A.’s office tends to be a reactive agency, without time or personnel to initiate many cases of its own. That’s not the way the feds handle complicated political corruption cases. Federal prosecutors build these cases from the ground up, with informants, stings, intensive examination of documents, surveillance, financial audits and all of the rest of the sophisticated tools available to modern law enforcement.

It’s expensive. It would require that some prosecutors be shifted away from violent crime cases. And political corruption cases are tough to win. The D.A.’s office would have to risk losing some.

But if Garcetti takes up the challenge and keeps the promise he made in his inaugural speech, he’ll be sending message that Los Angeles County is now ready to clean up its own mess rather than suffering the embarrassment of having outside federal prosecutors do it.