Taking Aim at Series on Felony Filings by District Attorney’s Office

* The Times ran a two-part series (July 30 and 31) titled “A Question of Justice,” concerning the performance of the Orange County district attorney’s office and the courts in filing and processing felony criminal matters. This was followed (Aug. 6) by a caustic editorial wherein The Times recommended substantial changes in how Dist. Atty. Michael Capizzi handles felony charges.

Unfortunately, the conclusions drawn by the authors of these articles are flawed and misleading. If one had the endurance to wade through the statistics quoted by The Times, it would appear that Mr. Capizzi’s office is incompetent and, compared to the other populous counties in California, we are crime-ridden. As Mark Twain once said, “There are statistics . . . and damn lies.” If The Times had relied less on obscure “think tanks” staffed by people who have never set foot in a court of law, a different picture would have emerged.

The Times claims that Mr. Capizzi’s office has the “poorest record” for securing felony convictions in the more populous counties in California. The Times goes on to state that “prosecutors were dramatically outperformed” by other [counties’] prosecutors.

Let’s look at some facts from a real courtroom where criminals are processed every day. In my court a log is kept on all felonies. Taking the last 50 cases Mr. Capizzi’s deputies tried in our department, we come up with the following facts: 1) The district attorney won 48 of those 50 cases; 2) the jurors acquitted two defendants; 3) at the time of sentencing, the district attorney asked for and received the maximum prison term on 40 convicted felons. Six were sent to prison for less than the maximum and two received probation and local jail.

The Times states sarcastically that “Orange County prosecutors talk tough.” I challenge The Times to find any county in California that can equal or surpass the performance of Mr. Capizzi’s office as summarized above.

The Times makes much to-do about Mr. Capizzi’s policy of refusing to plea bargain. This is a non-issue. Prosecutors give the judge in any pending matter far more input about the nature of the crime and the defendant’s criminal record than defense counsel.

The Times has done a great disservice to the men and women who toil to make our community safer. A small expenditure of time and effort would have resulted in a more accurate and balanced article. The bottom line is: Whatever Mr. Capizzi and the judges are doing, it has made Orange County one of the most pleasant communities in which to reside and raise our families.

LUIS CARDENAS

Judge of the Superior Court

Santa Ana

* I am very disappointed with the content of your July 30 and 31 articles regarding the Orange County district attorney’s office.

I have been a deputy district attorney for approximately 24 years and am currently supervising the juvenile and the TARGET [anti-gang] units.

Your articles implied that Orange County does not train police or have attorneys assigned to police departments. You noted that San Diego has three prosecutors assigned to work with police departments and held up San Diego as a model for us to follow.

Well, here in Orange County, the TARGET units, which I supervise, have eight deputy district attorneys stationed in seven police departments. The TARGET units started in Westminster in March, 1992. The initial Westminster TARGET unit has been copied throughout the United States and was recently featured on a national news program.

If you intended to write a fair article, why wasn’t Dist. Atty. Mike Capizzi’s TARGET program mentioned? I know your reporters were told about it.

BRYAN F. BROWN

Deputy district attorney

Santa Ana

* You recently published two articles critical of the Orange County district attorney’s office. I was disappointed in both articles because they relied on incomplete statistics, and because they failed to point out the many accomplishments of this office.

One of the worst examples of the negative approach was in respect to our training of police departments. We were accused of having “inconsistent and spotty training and communication,” while you praised the San Diego district attorney’s approach to these same areas. You mentioned that San Diego Deputy Dist. Atty. Mike Carleton had been personally involved in police training and had even produced a monthly videotape on legal issues, which was distributed to all the nine police departments in San Diego.

We know we must always strive to improve both communication and training, but look what your article left out.

We have been providing weekly videotaped training to all 23 Orange County police departments since I helped start that program in 1980. The program is so popular it is sold (at cost) to law enforcement agencies outside Orange County. Currently, 46 police departments outside of Orange County order our videotapes, so they must be helpful. I talked to [Mike Carleton this month]. He said he learned that Orange County was the only prosecutor’s office doing such training in Southern California, so he came up to Orange County to observe before starting the program in San Diego. He does one 10-minute tape per month. We do one each week.

You also failed to mention that the head of our training unit, Deputy Dist. Atty. Devallis Rutledge, is a well-recognized authority in police training throughout the state. For that reason Gov. Pete Wilson appointed him to the California Commission on Peace Officers Standards and Training (POST), which regulates all police training throughout the state. This year he was elected chairman of POST, and he personally does a monthly satellite broadcast to all police departments in California on legal topics. He tells me that about one-third of the telephone calls answered by his training section are from local police. Likewise, we have a deputy district attorney on call at nights and on weekends to assist police with search warrants.

Your neglect of what we have accomplished in police training was unfortunately typical of your approach: emphasize any negative, ignore any positive.

JOHN D. CONLEY

Assistant district attorney

Santa Ana

* Your July 30 and 31 articles on the Orange County district attorney’s office, regarding their filing and prosecution of felonies for about the past 10 years, and comparing that to various other California counties, were thorough, balanced and accurate.

But the current problems have been in place for at least 30 years in the areas of training prosecutors and police, setting felony guidelines in writing, plea bargaining, communication with law enforcement agencies, a centralized felony filing unit, experienced felony-filing deputies, etc.

Cecil Hicks became district attorney in 1966. A long management line regarding policy and procedures remains unbroken to this day.

NICK NOVICK

Irvine

The writer is a former Orange County deputy district attorney.