Lowering the Crime Rate

* I read with interest the March 30 interview with Culver City Police Chief Ted Cooke. His comments about prevention and working with juveniles are most commendable. His approach and experience deserve to be taken seriously.

It is when the subject turns to the death penalty, however, that his comments are misleading. California does in fact have the death penalty--the graves of Robert Harris and David Mason demonstrate this fact.

Another startling error is his comment with regards to life in prison without the possibility of parole. He claims that if you receive this penalty you will only serve 5 1/2 years. In fact, if you receive life in prison without the possibility of parole, you serve exactly that. There are more than 1,000 people serving this sentence in California. The only way they will get out in 5 1/2 years, or ever, is if the governor grants them clemency. It is misinformation such as Police Chief Cooke’s public statements that influences juries toward giving out the death penalty. Fear that the person will be released has led many jury members to vote for death.

CLAUDIA KING, Executive Director

Death Penalty Focus, Oakland

* Thank you for printing the thoughts of Cooke. Although my colleagues and I have been espousing similar philosophies for some time, I have come to assume that no manager would dare to embrace these thoughts publicly, let alone encourage and train police officers to take an aggressive and proactive role in their duties.

As a Los Angeles police officer assigned to a division specifically designed to take a proactive role in solving problems, I readily see the advantages to Culver City police officers led by Cooke.

TYLER IZEN

LAPD, Metropolitan Division

* Catherine O’Neill (“Bring in the Army to End the Fear,” Commentary, March 29) must have stayed in plush tourist hotels during her world travels. She did not see that in those countries where the military controls everything there is dread and fear almost beyond our comprehension. In military-run countries, those with badges and guns are the ones who, under the guise of control, disappear people, lie about innocent prisoners, massacre thousands and are granted amnesty for their crimes. Ask Bolivian miners, El Salvador or Guatemala peasants or survivors of Argentina’s “Dirty War” about the offenses that occur when the military is invited to restore order.

N. M. WELLS

San Pedro

* Perhaps it is time to re-examine some of the fundamental principles underpinning our criminal justice system.

The Founding Fathers decided that our system would be biased such that the guilty would be more likely to go free rather than the innocent be punished. From this principle comes the Miranda decision (“Convicted Slayer’s Freedom Hinges on Timing of Miranda,” March 29), the exclusionary rule and other laws intended to regulate and restrict the actions of law enforcement, to protect the rights of the guilty and innocent. Now, however, perhaps the citizenry would be willing to give law enforcement more flexibility in return for more aggressive law enforcement.

Rather than having the penalty for improper law enforcement be that the evidence or confession obtained thereby be inadmissible, maybe we should consider changing the system so that such evidence can be used, but if it is later determined that no crime had been committed, or if in fact no evidence is even turned up after an authorized search, the respective law enforcement agency would be civilly liable to the accused for damages resulting from the invasion. The point is that while there indeed needs to be some deterrent to prevent law enforcement from abuse, perhaps it should be in the form of compensation to the innocent and not benefit to the guilty.

RICK KURSHNER, Attorney

Venice