Prosecutor Is Unfazed by High Court Criticism

You don’t spend 30 years as a big city prosecutor without ruffling feathers. You can’t last that long in that job, in this town, just by rolling over every time someone claims you’ve stepped over the line or not played fair.

But even by the toughest set of rules you can apply, Los Angeles Deputy Dist. Atty. Rosalie Morton has--more than once--outraged many in the legal community with her tactics and courtroom antics.

Fact is, she is a legend in Los Angeles courtrooms, with all that designation implies.

So it surprised almost no one, really, when Morton, 74, was hammered this week by the state Supreme Court for misconduct it considered so egregious that it overturned the 1988 murder conviction of a man Morton prosecuted. What’s more, the court--a conservative court--recommended Morton’s case to the State Bar of California for possible discipline.

“Morton’s actions, at times childish and unprofessional and at other times outrageous and unethical, betrayed her trust as a public prosecutor,” Justice Kathryn Mickle Werdegar wrote in the unanimous opinion. “Her methods were deceptive and reprehensible.”

If another attorney would have been mortified by such a scolding, Morton, characteristically, seemed to take it in stride Tuesday.

“They just don’t like my winning all the time,” Morton, a petite dynamo with piercing blue eyes, said of her critics.

“My job is to be assertive,” she said when asked if the opinion would soften her approach to lawyering. “I’ve never done anything dishonest.”

Indeed, as one veteran prosecutor observed: “The only thing Rosalie is upset about in the article is that it quoted her age.”

Still, Dist. Atty. Gil Garcetti called Morton’s alleged conduct “unacceptable” Tuesday and said he had launched an investigation into the matter. Morton in the meantime has been reassigned to filing cases, rather than trial work. “The conduct discussed in that decision is simply and totally unacceptable,” Garcetti said.

He said he could not comment on any complaints or action taken in previous administrations because of personnel record confidentiality requirements. Garcetti said the review will include all prior incidents alleged in the high court’s decision.

Notwithstanding the internal inquiry that is underway, Morton has won the grudging respect of many colleagues.

Beneath her tough exterior, they will tell you, is an even tougher interior.

“She’s a tough cookie,” one prosecutor said. “I don’t know if she’s cunning and knows what she’s doing wrong or oblivious . . . but she’s always unapologetic and unbowed by what she does.”

Or as Deputy Dist. Atty. Herb Lapin put it: “Rosalie’s problem is there’s Rosalie’s way and there’s Rosalie’s way and there’s no other way.”

That way has served Morton through a long, if not static-free, career in the nation’s largest prosecutorial office--one where she arrived in 1970.

A 1965 law school graduate, Morton became a deputy D.A. after a stint in the Los Angeles city attorney’s office, where, she recalled, a senior prosecutor told her at the time: “Women don’t belong here.”

She refused to be pushed around and treated as a nonprofessional, Morton recalled. “I had to decide whether I was going to be a lawyer or a nothing.”

She became a lawyer.

Over the years, said her longtime friend and colleague Deputy Dist. Atty. Marsh Goldstein, Morton specialized in trying the hard cases--murder, sexual assault, child molestation--before juries.

“Once she is convinced the defendant is guilty, she’ll work incredibly hard to investigate the case, prepare the case, try the case and often win the case.”

The question, of course, has been at what cost.

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In 1989, a federal magistrate referred to her as a “loose cannon” for her conduct in a robbery trial. While that remark still shadows her career, Morton points out that a higher court concluded that she had not been guilty of prosecutorial misconduct. The recent Supreme Court ruling, of course, was a much firmer admonishment.

“I am surprised that they would go out as far as they did with recommending censure,” said Charles R. English, a prominent defense attorney who is on good terms with Morton. “Usually, if they refer someone for prosecutorial misconduct, they do it with a velvet glove. This sounds like they did it with a sledgehammer.”

And over the years, according to numerous attorneys, including many who call her friend, Morton’s actions have repeatedly been called into question by opposing counsel and judges.

“Ms. Morton had a long history, in published and unpublished appellate reports, of misconduct,” said one longtime defense attorney. “And this reversal seems to be sort of a lifetime achievement award.”

But in her defense, even that attorney said, Morton’s upbraiding by the Supreme Court was aimed at “sending a message” to prosecutors here and statewide that the court is watching.

Said noted defense attorney Leslie Abramson: “She is a legend in the legal community. She is considered by defense counsel as being totally out of control and, for most people, not easy to deal with. But I personally like her.”

While the district attorney’s office has not decided what to do about retrying the Shawn Hill murder case, Morton has made it clear that she hopes he will again be tried for murder.

And, she said, she will not allow the 10-year-old case--and its resulting brouhaha--to push her more quickly into retirement.

Although previously intending to leave the job next year, true to stubborn form, Morton is now not making any plans to retire. “Now I’ll see what I’ll do,” she said. “I wouldn’t let this case put me down.”

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Times staff writers Nancy Hill-Holtzman, Solomon Moore and Maura Dolan contributed to this story.