Would-Be Lawmen

Mike Carona and Paul M. Walters weren’t supposed to be on opposite sides of the fence when the June 1998 election for Orange County sheriff rolled around.

Carona, the Orange County marshal, had jumped out of the gate in early 1997 to challenge Sheriff Brad Gates, and the head of his steering committee was Walters, the police chief of Santa Ana.

Gates was firmly entrenched in running the 2,500-member agency, the second-largest sheriff’s department in California, with a budget of $214 million. Every four years for more than two decades, he had faced only token opposition at the polls.

But a few months after Gates announced his plans to retire, Walters decided to run against Carona.

Since then, the battle for the top law enforcement job in Orange County has become unmistakably personal.

“I’m disappointed in the tone of the campaign, because [Carona] says he’s a Christian,” Walters said. “He would not behave the way he does if he was a true Christian. I’m embarrassed because he . . . carries a badge and represents policing. I’m embarrassed that he so politicized this and has gotten away from what it is really about. It’s a police officer position.”

Carona blamed Walters for the bad blood.

“I have a discomfort with it becoming a personal conflict, but unfortunately, that’s where [Walters] has taken this,” he said. “Paul has no issues that he wants to talk about, so he makes it a personal attack. That’s unfortunate.”

Carona also criticizes Walters for never calling him to say he was going to run.

“Talk about lying and credibility, the man has taken what was a friendship, where literally we were extremely close, and for no apparent reason, other than the fact that his ego tells him he wants to be the next sheriff of Orange County, has attacked me personally.”

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Neither man has the endorsement of Gates, who had backed Assistant Sheriff Doug Storm for the job before Storm quickly dropped out. But both candidates have strong bases of support.

“Both men are more than qualified,” said George Wright, chairman of the criminal justice department at Santa Ana College. “They are very different in their styles. Carona has spent more time putting together a coalition of different factions of the community. Walters has worked harder to get support from the police community. Either one is going to be a dramatic change in the way the Sheriff’s Department operates.”

Walters, 52, joined the Santa Ana Police Department in 1971 as a patrol officer and became chief in 1988. He advocates expanding the city’s community policing program countywide, and says law enforcement must work to prevent crime as well as respond to it.

“The role of the police officer today is much broader,” Walters said. “Our obligation does not stop at just arresting the individual and prosecuting them. Our obligation is to the schools, to the churches and to the other institutions in the community to educate, inform and get people involved, to empower them.”

Santa Ana has been recognized as a national leader in community policing, most recently in a U.S. Department of Justice study released last fall. The city has experienced a declining crime rate in recent years, including a 17.5% decrease in 1997.

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Carona, who turns 43 this month, joined the marshal’s office in 1976 as a deputy. Twelve years later, he was appointed to the top job, overseeing security in the courts and the serving of bench warrants.

Carona has touted a 10-point plan that includes: resolving jail overcrowding; opposing the expansion of the James A. Musick Branch Jail in Irvine into a maximum-security jail; imposing a two-term limit for the sheriff; reducing the operational costs of the Sheriff’s Department by 5%; seeking an external audit of the department, and separating the coroner’s and sheriff’s offices.

One of the more contentious issues in the campaign has been jails. While both oppose a proposal to convert the low-security Musick facility into a maximum-security jail, they differ on proposals to expand Theo Lacy Branch Jail in Orange.

Walters favors adding maximum-security beds to Theo Lacy.

“Theo Lacy can be doubled in size,” he said. “It can add another 1,300 maximum-security beds. You go to Musick and you’ll find 200 empty beds, because they’re minimum security. That’s not the types of people we’re arresting. We’re arresting career criminals.”

Carona says Theo Lacy should expand by about 350 beds, but not more. Instead, he advocates construction of a new jail which would be privately financed but operated by the Sheriff’s Department. That, he said, would solve the problem of inmates being released early due to jail overcrowding.

“The private sector will come in and literally fund this lock-down facility for drug and alcohol offenders, and they lease the facility back to us on a per-day, per-bed basis,” Carona said.

“What I’ve talked about is public-private partnerships,” Carona said. “But by law, the Sheriff’s Department has to run that facility. What we’re doing is taking care of those people who have been released back into the streets because of lack of jail space and everybody serves their full sentence.”

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Carona’s campaign is run by state Sen. John R. Lewis (R-Orange) and has endorsements from several conservative members of Congress, the state Legislature and city councils.

Walters enjoys widespread support in the law enforcement community, including the endorsements of several police chiefs in Orange County and around the state. A key endorsement came from the Assn. of Orange County Deputy Sheriffs.

While Walters must battle the perception that Santa Ana, despite the crime drop, is riddled with gang violence, Carona has had to contend with the perception that a marshal is not a cop.

At a recent debate in Anaheim sponsored by the League of Women Voters, Carona was drowned out with laughs and groans when he said, “I have made hundreds, if not thousands, of arrests.” Undaunted, Carona continued, “I’ve done all of the law enforcement jobs that my opponent has done.”

Carona later said the perception insults deputy marshals “who get stabbed, who get shot, who are involved in pursuits, who do all the things that every other peace officer in Orange County does.”

Still, Carona’s background as a marshal is considered a major reason he does not have the support of the deputies union.

Augie Alvarez, president of that union, said: “We like Paul because he started out like we did, working midnights, working patrol. He’s been a cop like us and he’s done all the things we do. He’s worked his way from the bottom to the top. Carona has been a bailiff all his life, he’s been in the courtroom. How is he ever going to understand the police function if he has never done it himself?”

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Carona points out that a union committee, not the membership at large, made the endorsement, and that a support group has formed called Orange County Deputy Sheriffs for Mike Carona.

“The rhetoric is that he is not a real cop,” said sheriff’s Deputy Bud Hood, a leader in the rival group. “But he’s a consummate police officer and he has the ability to run the department.”

Carona admits that if he is elected, winning respect of those he commands will be a challenge.

“I feel very confident that I’ll be able to walk in, with the group of supporters I have, and at least have a base of support,” Carona said. “The truth of the matter is, you can have the title, but no one’s going to follow behind you if you can’t do the job. My responsibility is to deliver on the promises.”