Lawyers Say State Rules Exonerate Ratner, Aide

The state attorney general has been advising law-enforcement officers that they can legally listen in on confidential conversations of suspects, despite charging a Ventura County prosecutor and investigator with felony eavesdropping.

Each year, California Atty. Gen. Daniel E. Lungren sends law-enforcement officers a legal publication that specifically states that eavesdropping is acceptable as long as no electronic or mechanical device is used.

“You may legally eavesdrop on a conversation without the aid of a mechanical or electronic device as long as you hear it from a location where you have a lawful right to be,” the attorney general’s California Peace Officers Legal Sourcebook says.

Attorneys for Deputy Dist. Atty. Stacy A. Ratner and investigator Katherine Smith--both charged with felony eavesdropping--consider the statement evidence that their clients have not broken the law.

Ratner and Smith were charged May 20, after a bailiff in a Ventura County courtroom reported that they eavesdropped on a conversation between a defense attorney and burglary defendant.

Ratner is accused of ordering Smith, her investigator in the case against Robert Lee Morrow, to sit near a courtroom holding cell last January and listen as the defendant discussed the charges against him with his attorney.

“You’ve got basically the attorney general’s own material, saying, ‘Hey, it requires an electronic device,’ ” defense attorney Stuart D. Adams said Friday about the legal publication. Adams, who is defending Smith, has filed a motion asking that the charge against Smith and Ratner be dismissed. His motion, in part, is based on the information provided in the legal handbook issued by the attorney general’s office, Adams said.

Ratner’s attorney, Harland W. Braun, said the advice in the legal publication “means if someone is talking loud enough to be overheard from a public place, then your privacy is not being violated.”

Dave Puglia, a spokesman for Lungren, refused to comment on the advice in the Legal Sourcebook, which he said is intended to “provide guidance for those in the criminal-justice system.”

The legal publication describes scenarios in which law-enforcement officers may listen to seemingly confidential conversations.

Under a section called “Electronic Eavesdropping and Recording,” it states that “. . . non-electronic eavesdropping constitutes neither an illegal ‘interception’ nor an unreasonable invasion of privacy.”

But the next paragraph appears to limit that guideline.

“On the other hand, an inmate must be given the opportunity to conduct a completely private ( un overheard) conversation when he is meeting with his attorney,” the Legal Sourcebook says.

Ratner and Smith, who were placed on paid administrative leave, could not be reached for comment Friday. District attorney’s officials will not comment on the issue until the case is resolved, they said.

But Braun maintained the pair was charged by “incompetent” aides to Lungren. Smith’s attorney, Adams, agreed. Deputy Atty. Gen. Douglas Sortino, who signed the felony complaint, has refused to comment.

“I can only say maybe they (the attorney general’s office) were afraid of being accused of whitewashing (the case),” Adams said.

And Adams said he does not expect the charges to be dropped without a fight.

“They’re not just going to say, ‘Sorry! Oops!’ And dismiss the thing,” Adams said.

On Jan. 19, Ventura County Sheriff’s Deputy Edward LeClair wrote in the report that Ratner ordered Smith to eavesdrop as Deputy Public Defender Mary L. Fielder talked with her client, Robert Lee Morrow.

According to district attorney’s officials, Ratner acknowledged asking Smith to eavesdrop. But she claimed she was simply trying to figure out whether Morrow would be asking to have his case postponed so she could make her vacation plans.