Dally Prosecutors in Marathon

After the lights shut off at the Hall of Justice and the cleaning staff goes home, Deputy Dist. Atty. Lela Henke-Dobroth often remains hunkered down in her third-floor office with a full load of work.

For more than a year, the 51-year-old prosecutor has poured her heart into one case: the May 1996 slaying of Ventura homemaker Sherri Dally.

It is a crime she feels passionately about--so much so that some critics say she and co-counsel Michael Frawley, 38, will do whatever it takes to obtain guilty verdicts against Dally’s accused killers.

She has already secured a conviction against Diana Haun, one of two people linked to the slaying. And now she and Frawley are trying for a second conviction--this one against Dally’s husband, Michael.

In the coming weeks, the two prosecutors will stitch together a complex puzzle of evidence in an effort to prove that the 37-year-old grocery store manager conspired with Haun to kill his wife.

It will not be easy. Dally’s trial follows closely on the heels of Haun’s, giving the lawyers little time to rebound from the emotional and physical stress that comes with handling any high-profile murder trial--let alone one where the death penalty is being sought.

“Either you have to have a great deal of energy or you have to pace yourself--or a bit of each,” said Deputy Dist. Atty. Peter D. Kossoris, a veteran prosecutor. “It’s a marathon more than a sprint, so you have to have that finishing kick.”

With a gag order on all attorneys in the high-profile case, the prosecution team could not talk about the task before them.

But colleagues say if there is a pair capable of such a long-distance effort, Henke-Dobroth and Frawley are it.

They are considered among the most hard-working prosecutors in the district attorney’s office, and described as fighters in the courtroom.

“They are two of the best,” said Chief Deputy Dist. Atty. Ron Janes, who oversees the prosecution of major crimes. “They are both very, very thorough and competitive.”

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Henke-Dobroth became involved in the Sherri Dally investigation shortly after the 35-year-old woman disappeared from a Target parking lot May 6, 1996. Witnesses saw her climb into a car driven by a blond woman.

Dally’s skeletal remains were found by a search party in the bottom of a ravine 26 days later. She had been beaten and stabbed to death.

As the senior attorney in charge of putting sex offenders and child abusers behind bars, Henke-Dobroth was not among the usual list of prosecutors tapped to handle homicides.

But the Dally case was different.

From the start, Henke-Dobroth felt a connection with the crime victim and a strong desire to seek justice on her behalf, co-workers said.

“Early on it was determined Lela would handle that prosecution,” recalls Ventura Police Department Lt. Don Arth, who led the investigation.

Henke-Dobroth has been a lead prosecutor and supervisor in the district attorney’s office for the past decade, and is now the highest-ranking woman in the office.

For six months, her co-counsel on the Dally case was another figure in the office who typically does not handle homicide cases--Dist. Atty. Michael D. Bradbury. They went before the Ventura County Grand Jury, securing an indictment against Haun and later against Michael Dally.

Bradbury later stepped down from the case, and Frawley was named Henke-Dobroth’s new partner. It is her first capital murder trial, and their first case together.

Frawley was co-counsel on the trial of Mark Scott Thornton, sentenced to death in 1995 for fatally shooting Westlake nurse Kellie O’Sullivan.

Although their backgrounds are different, Henke-Dobroth and Frawley are described in similar terms by critics and colleagues alike: aggressive and committed to their work.

“I would classify them both as real fighters in the courtroom,” Arth said. “The working relationship that we have had with Lela and Michael Frawley has just been outstanding.”

Kossoris says they share another characteristic--one that is valuable in the pressure-cooker environment fostered during a high-profile trial.

“Both Lela and Mike have a real good sense of humor,” he said. “It’s not like they are serious 100% of the time.”

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Henke-Dobroth began working for the Ventura County district attorney’s office 23 years ago, first as a legal secretary while earning an undergraduate degree from Ventura College and later as a law clerk.

She graduated from Ventura College of Law in 1980 and began working as a prosecutor in the child-support division soon after.

“Once I started law school, that’s all I wanted to be,” she said in a 1993 interview. “My mother planted the seed. I thought it was out of reach, but it suddenly became something I could do.”

Within a short period, Henke-Dobroth began to handle misdemeanor and felony sexual assault cases before being promoted to the major crimes division where she prosecuted murder suspects.

In 1989, she became supervisor of the sexual assault and career criminal unit, and was later promoted to one of Bradbury’s top assistants to oversee sexual assault, domestic violence, misdemeanor and juvenile prosecutions.

In her current role, she also oversees the victim services division--a role that dovetails with her passion for representing the rights of crime victims, co-workers say.

“She is probably one of the best allies that a crime victim can have,” said Debbie O’Neill, director of victim services. “She has a strong sense of victims’ needs and will go to the mat to protect their rights in the courtroom.”

In many ways, Henke-Dobroth’s ties to the Dally case are illustrative of that commitment, O’Neill said.

“I think in this case, she is very driven by a sense that she is doing this for Sherri,” she said. “It has been very inspiring to watch that from my perspective.”

Since she took over the Dally case, Henke-Dobroth’s responsibilities as an administrator have been delegated to other supervisors, Janes said.

She has also been forced to put her family life on hold. Henke-Dobroth is married to Municipal Court Judge John Dobroth. They live near Ojai with a 6 1/2-year-old granddaughter.

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For Frawley, the Dally case is the latest in a long line of high-profile trials that have filled his docket in recent years.

He played a role in sending Thornton to death row. He prosecuted last year’s controversial trial of Oxnard Police Officer Robert Flinn, who was accused of using excessive force during the arrest of two fleeing suspects.

And he was assigned to prosecute accused killer Michael Raymond Johnson after the 50-year-old Ventura man fatally shot Ventura County Sheriff’s Deputy Peter Aguirre Jr. in July 1996.

Frawley spent six months on the case before being pulled off to work on the Haun and Dally trials.

“He is extremely hard-working,” said Deputy Dist. Atty. Matthew Hardy, who took over the Johnson case. “He is a man of integrity, and he is one of those people who you could disagree with and it doesn’t become personal.”

A Notre Dame graduate who earned a law degree from McGeorge School of Law in Sacramento, Frawley says his decision to become a career prosecutor came easily.

He was working part time at a civil firm in Sacramento while finishing school, and was lured to the Ventura County district attorney’s office by its location and career prospects.

Hardy remembers the day Frawley first walked into the office.

“We watch the rookies,” he said. “He was somebody that the minute he hit this place was a natural.”

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Henke-Dobroth and Frawley are not without their critics.

Her tough-minded tactics and zealous advocacy for crime victims sometimes frustrate defense attorneys, who say she will use whatever means necessary to win a case.

The same criticism is leveled at Frawley, who some former adversaries say pushes the legal limits in advocating the state’s position.

“I had no reason to believe that he was dishonest,” one defense attorney said. “There were times when I had questions with his approach.”

During the Flinn trial, Frawley’s remarks drew an angry reaction from the law enforcement community.

The prosecutor dubbed Flinn “a bully with a badge” in his opening statement and accused members of the Oxnard Police Department of lying to protect their fellow officer.

Flinn was acquitted on two charges of police brutality last March, and the jury deadlocked on two other counts.

After the case, Frawley was criticized by police supporters and at least one juror for launching a “witch hunt.” Members of the Oxnard Police Assn. wanted a public apology from Bradbury because of Frawley’s statements.

Frawley takes issue with the criticism.

“The charge of a witch hunt is irrational,” he said. “We only prosecute a police officer because we are convinced beyond a reasonable doubt that wrong has taken place. And when that is apparent, we have to go after that citizen just like anyone else.”

On more than one occasion, Superior Court Judge Frederick A. Jones came down hard on both prosecutors for their tactics during the Haun trial.

At the penalty phase, Jones criticized the pair for stretching beyond the “outer reaches” of allowable evidence in an effort to get a death verdict against Haun.

Prosecutors wanted to call nine witnesses, including two doctors, to testify about pain and suffering Sherri Dally may have endured in the moments before her death. Jones ruled such testimony inadmissible.

“I have not encountered a similar case coming within a light-year of what the prosecution would offer,” he said at the time. “There are limits on emotional evidence and argument.”

The jury at the end of the penalty phase spared Haun from execution and sentenced her to life in prison without parole.

What fate awaits her former lover and co-defendant remains to be seen.

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Last week during opening statements in Dally’s trial, Henke-Dobroth stood before the jury in a conservative gray suit and methodically went through the circumstances surrounding the case.

She outlined the evidence to be presented in coming weeks and told jurors that they would hear testimony from more than 100 witnesses. In many ways, it is a tough case for the prosecution to prove.

“There is no smoking gun,” Henke-Dobroth told the jury, explaining that Dally was not present when his wife was kidnapped, nor when she was killed.

What they do believe, however, is that Dally masterminded the crime and persuaded Haun to carry it out. Dally’s attorneys say he played no role and argue Haun was a “wacko” who acted alone.

With the battle lines drawn and the trial now in full swing, co-workers say they expect to find the two prosecutors working late into the night again.

“Every waking moment a prosecutor is in trial, it is spent on the case,” said Janes, speaking not about the Dally case but murder trials in general.

“You are constantly working,” he said. “There is just not a lot of time for anything else.”