Seeking Voters’ Verdict on the Simpson Case

After taking a relentless pounding from his opponent for losing the O.J. Simpson murder case, Dist. Atty. Gil Garcetti is counterattacking.

He’s attempting to do this with an issue that is very much part of the Simpson case--domestic violence. He is portraying the challenger, Deputy Dist. Atty. John Lynch, as an insensitive bureaucrat who is clueless about the importance of the subject and would cut back the D.A.’s domestic violence prosecutions.

You may be hearing and seeing this pitch in television commercials beginning next month as Garcetti campaigns for the crucial votes of suburbanites, who have shown little sympathy in public opinion polls for Simpson, who once pleaded no contest to hitting his wife.

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Garcetti tried out his scenario Monday night at a debate with Lynch, attended by about 500 members of the Assn. of Deputy District Attorneys.

The tough campaign--both Garcetti’s polls and Lynch’s indicate a far-from-decided race--seem to have changed both men.

Garcetti’s voice was slightly hoarse. His manner was edgy. But months of combat had loosened his tightly controlled manner, and he seemed much more human than when the campaign had started.

Lynch, a stolid campaigner at the start, was beginning to show emotion, both in his voice and his face. At times, he looked like an angry Irish prosecutor from some 1930s New York courthouse.

Both men are trying to cash in on different aspects of public outrage about the Simpson case.

Since the beginning of the campaign, Lynch has pounded Garcetti for the Simpson loss. It’s the guts of the Lynch campaign, based on his hopes that public outrage over the outcome has doomed Garcetti.

But there was another aspect to the case--extensive prosecution testimony about how Simpson beat his wife, Nicole. This testimony added to the image Garcetti was building as a crusader against domestic violence.

As evidence, Garcetti on Monday cited past statements of Lynch, who has said prosecution of child abuse, hate crimes and domestic violence are “at the margins” of the D.A.’s job, with top priority given to prosecuting street crime.

Garcetti also read from an interview with his foe in the Civic Center News in which Lynch said much of the D.A.’s job consisted of “boring” routine. “We prosecute criminals, that’s all we do,” he said. “Period. It’s not very glamorous.”

Garcetti, who had sought to move his office into prevention of domestic violence and child abuse, said this was far too limited a view of the job. Lynch, he said, has a “potted plant type of mentality” that opposes such programs, and would cut them down.

“I am not going to de-emphasize domestic violence [prosecutions],” Lynch replied. He said he meant that the D.A.’s main responsibility is prosecuting “predatory street crime.”

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The exchange was important on two levels.

On the policy level, it indicated Lynch would return the office to a more traditional, bread-and-butter concern with murder, robberies and other such crimes.

This is a sharp contrast to Garcetti, who trained the spotlight on crimes that had once been ignored, such as spousal and child abuse.

By giving such crimes high-profile treatment, Garcetti has been applauded by activists who have long contended that domestic abuse can be more deadly than street crime.

This could help him with a key constituency as he attacks Lynch for being a reluctant domestic abuse warrior.

The constituency is found in the suburbs, among high-voting residents who are considered to be the key to winning this year’s elections, from president down to D.A.

These suburbanites, polls showed, were unhappy over the Simpson verdict. If he can raise enough money, Lynch will hit them with television commercials and mailings featuring the Simpson case. The advertising would be seen as the Simpson civil trial, which begins next Tuesday, is going full blast in the Santa Monica courthouse.

Garcetti, threatened by the attack, is telling voters that spousal abuse was also part of the Simpson case and that he, not Lynch, has been on top of the issue for years.