Exile as a Management Tool

Gil Garcetti needs to be reminded that he is running a tax-supported public office, not a personal fiefdom.

Garcetti’s reassignment of David Conn, a skilled and accomplished prosecutor, is sadly more of the same seemingly vengeful behavior Garcetti displayed during his first term. Conn was transferred effective Monday from the elite major crimes division downtown to the district attorney’s Norwalk office, where he will be a trial deputy handling routine cases.

Most cases that come to the district attorney’s office are routine criminal prosecutions, and the work done by trial deputies forms the backbone of the office. But Conn’s reassignment has the whiff of payback. Last March, after he handed Garcetti, then locked in a nasty reelection battle, a key win in the second murder trial of the Menendez brothers, Conn had the audacity to admit he “wouldn’t mind” one day following in his boss’ footsteps by running for district attorney. Despite Garcetti’s assertions to the contrary, many in the D.A.’s office believe Conn’s fate was sealed once he admitted he someday might want Garcetti’s job.

During his first term, Garcetti summarily dispatched several top prosecutors after they won key cases and stepped briefly into the limelight. With such transfers, Garcetti merely fuels the speculation that he cannot abide the success of his own deputies. No wonder morale in the D.A.’s office continues to be so low.

Of all people, Garcetti should know better. In 1988, then-Dist. Atty. Ira Reiner demoted Garcetti, his second-in-command, without explanation, reassigning him to Torrance.

Retribution is not a principle of good management. And a true leader recognizes that it is the public interest, not his own pride, to which he owes allegiance.