Actions in Baugh Case Questionable

If the events of the search of the home of Assemblyman Scott Baugh (R-Huntington Beach) are even close to what Mr. Baugh has reported, then Dist. Atty. Michael R. Capizzi should be removed from office.

I’ve read all the news reports on this incident and frankly, I believe Baugh.

One can only speculate, but are Capizzi and his staff Doris Allen Republicans?

H. MILLARD

Costa Mesa

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I am as horrified as Rep. Dana Rohrabacher (R-Huntington Beach) at this event, and I support his call for Capizzi’s resignation.

But I must also confess to a certain amount of Schadenfreude because this kind of overzealous behavior has been the hallmark of more and more law enforcement agencies in recent years. And Rohrabacher and other police-state Republicans have been inattentive to it.

When any district attorney has the arrogance to send government goons to crash the home of a duly elected official--especially for something as dubious as “campaign finance irregularities”--imagine what they’re already doing to ordinary people.

I hope this assault on Scott Baugh will be Rohrabacher’s epiphany about what’s happening in this country and will sensitize him to the creeping growth of the police state. The Randy Weaver, Waco and other events are not aberrations.

On this note, I urge the immediate removal of the police-state provisions in the Welfare Reform Act which create new databases for “deadbeat parents” and empower government further to assault and plunder them. There is no constitutional mandate for government to tell anyone how to arrange his finances.

All legislation that directs government to extort money from one person for the benefit of another is unconstitutional and should be repealed. In “our” efforts to downsize the welfare state, let’s make sure we don’t upsize the police state.

DON HULL

Costa Mesa

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Dana Rohrabacher threw a verbal rabbit punch at Capizzi. The congressman compared the district attorney’s early morning service of a judicially authorized search warrant on Scott Baugh to tactics of the Third Reich.

Baugh is under investigation for allegedly winning elective office under false pretenses, including allegedly making false financial representations and later trying to cover up the prior lies. He is, of course, innocent until proven guilty, notwithstanding his intrepid self-destructiveness. Baugh should receive the benefit of the doubt.

Not so Rohrabacher. He spoke out as a member of the House of Representatives. As such, his attack on Capizzi had the presumption of propriety [of] a public official standing up for the civil liberties of a constituent.

But Rohrabacher was really exploiting his own office under false pretenses. First, Baugh is his boy, his lackey. Rohrabacher may well be a witness in Baugh’s trial. He had no business using his public office to plead the cause of a crony.

Second, the congressman was unfair to Capizzi. Everybody knows that judges cannot speak out in their own defense. The same is true of prosecutors in a criminal investigation. They are forbidden from responding. Why? They must protect the right to a fair trial of the person they are investigating. Rohrabacher knew that. That is why his blow was a rabbit punch.

STUART P. JASPER

Mission Viejo