Would-Be Lawmen

Once colleagues in the Orange County district attorney’s office, Anthony Rackauckas Jr. and Wallace J. Wade are crossing paths again, this time as rivals in a bitter battle to become the county’s top prosecutor.

At first glance, the candidates would appear to have much in common: both are graduates of Loyola University Law School, both support the three-strikes law and vow to be tough on crime, and both say street gangs are their first priority.

But Wade and Rackauckas have spent much of their time in recent months publicly hammering at each other’s differences. Their campaigns, which began cordially, have turned angry with charges and countercharges. They have assailed one another’s records and qualifications, sparred over campaign donations and accused one another of printing falsehoods in their candidate statements.

The fight may be intensified by the fact that, for the first time since 1966, no incumbent appears on the ballot. Dist. Atty. Mike Capizzi is running instead for state attorney general.

“It’s a new ballgame,” said Franz Miller, a staff attorney with the 4th District Court of Appeal and past president of the Orange County Bar Assn. “There’s certainly been a tradition in this county for electing incumbent law enforcement officials for as long as I can remember.”

Wade, 51, has risen through the ranks of the D.A.’s office to become one of four assistant district attorneys under Capizzi. His priorities, he says, include prosecuting crimes against children, the elderly and victims of domestic violence and reforming the juvenile justice system.

Rackauckas, 54, left the district attorney’s office in 1988 for private practice. He became involved politically with statewide criminal justice issues before becoming a judge. He says repeat offenders, sexual predators and criminals who use guns are his primary targets and that he wants to launch a countywide anti-gang effort.

Outsider vs. Insider

Anticipating that Capizzi would be his opponent, Rackauckas said he decided to run for the four-year term because he “felt strongly” that changes were needed in the district attorney’s office.

“I thought that to get the office running better, they needed some new leadership,” he said. “I didn’t think that anybody else there was going to do it. Capizzi certainly wasn’t likely to change matters, and the people who worked for him, the assistants, were pretty much in the same mold in terms of the micro-management-type style.”

But Wade bristled at such criticism.

“That is Fantasyland to talk about this office being dysfunctional,” he said. “This office went through a bankruptcy without losing a person and maintained our high standards. Sure, I think there are some people who are upset with the management style that I think everyone would agree has not been warm and fuzzy and cuddly. I don’t know how much cuddlier I am, but I have a different, decentralized management style.”

Wade, a 17-year veteran of the office, supervised the 30-month criminal investigation of the Orange County bankruptcy resulting in the prosecutions of former Treasurer-Tax Collector Robert L. Citron and his assistant, Matthew Raabe. He currently is director of special operations, which handles political corruption cases.

Capizzi has endorsed Wade, who, he says, is “bright, hard-working and oozes integrity.

“He understands the issues and he understands the operations of the office,” Capizzi said. “I think he’s got all the experience and necessary ingredients to make sure Orange County’s low crime rate continues into the future.”

Boss a Lonely Backer

Capizzi said Wade has been a key part of a management team that has caused the violent crime rate to drop far below the national average, developed a policy against plea bargaining and won eight death penalty verdicts in 1997, the most of any county in the state.

But Wade does not enjoy the support of most of the front-line trial deputies. Their union, the Assn. of Deputy District Attorneys, endorsed Rackauckas by a vote of 114 to 26. Most of the supervisors and managers in the 237-member office do not belong to the union, but none have endorsed Wade publicly except Capizzi.

Rackauckas said he won the endorsement because “They don’t like [Wade’s] management style. People who work for him have given him a vote of no confidence. He hired many of the people who voted against him. He was the past president of the association and assisted in writing its bylaws. It’s a stunning defeat when you think about it.”

Rackauckas served for 16 years as a deputy district attorney and was named Prosecutor of the Year by his peers in 1986. Then-Gov. George Deukmejian appointed him to the bench of the Municipal Court in Orange County in 1990. Three years later, he was elevated to a Superior Court judgeship by Gov. Pete Wilson.

Before becoming a judge, Rackauckas led efforts to remove Chief Justice Rose Bird from the California Supreme Court and coauthored the Crime Victim’s Justice Reform Act and the state’s torture statute, which makes the crime of torture punishable by life in prison.

Association members said their decision to support Rackauckas was based in part on long-standing dissatisfaction with Capizzi and his management.

“I think there are some morale problems in the office,” said Deputy Dist. Atty. Dan McNerney, a Rackauckas supporter. “But another reason is that Tony is and has been one of the most highly respected judges on the criminal panel. We also remember what a giant he was as a prosecutor and what a role model.”

Deputies Want Input

Attorneys in the office say they hope to have more input in their cases, which is difficult now, they say, since the office banned plea bargains.

“I think a lot of the lawyers are afraid to use their judgment and afraid to say this may not be a maximum state prison case,” McNerney said. “Many of the lawyers would expect when [Rackauckas] becomes D.A., a great value would be placed on lawyers using the judgment they were hired for.”

Wade accuses Rackauckas of trying to sell to the deputies the idea that they would have more discretion if he becomes their boss. He says the current system is in place for good reason.

“You can’t have 235 deputy D.A.s who have a different standard for what a case is worth and how we should deal with the defense and all the rest,” he said. “There’s only one D.A.. If the deputies are developed correctly, we’ll achieve some kind of standard which is fair to the public and is also fair to the defendant.”

Wade has blasted Rackauckas for soliciting contributions from assistant district attorneys, a practice he said has “divided this office.”

Staffers Get Mailers

State law forbids officeholders or candidates seeking to head an office from soliciting money from employees they ultimately might supervise. The state attorney general’s office ruled this month that Rackauckas had done nothing wrong, because his campaign mailers sent to office staffers were part of a larger solicitation to “a significant segment of the public.”

Ironically, Wade had to explain recently why his campaign had done the same thing. He said that mailers seeking contributions were sent to some prosecutors at their offices by mistake. And he has refused to accept campaign contributions from district attorney personnel.

Wade has tried to portray his opponent as a judge who has been soft of crime by reducing the charges in “65%” of the three-strikes cases before him. He has made a campaign issue of the case of Ronald Lara, a three-strikes defendant with 20 felony convictions who was spared a sentence of 25 years to life when Rackauckas reduced a check forgery charge to a misdemeanor.

Rackauckas countered that a separate felony charge of domestic abuse against Lara was reduced to a misdemeanor by the district attorney’s unit headed by Wade.

Another debate is over collection of child-support payments. Wade, who headed that unit for several years, says it’s a top priority. But Rackauckas says the county’s record is poor, and in 1997, it ranked 45th out of 58 California counties in child-support collections.

Corruption Cases

Prosecution of political cases by the district attorney’s office also has been a matter of debate. Republican leaders accused Capizzi, who specialized in corruption cases, of political motivations in the prosecutions of Assemblyman Scott Baugh (R-Huntington Beach) and several GOP campaign aides involved in the special 1995 election to recall then-Assemblyman Doris Allen (R-Cypress). The aides pleaded guilty to misdemeanors, while Baugh continues to fight felony charges in Orange County Superior Court. Wade has supported Capizzi in the prosecutions.

“Any type of thing that affects the infrastructure of the government is as important or more important than any other unit in the office, including homicide,” Wade said.

Rackauckas said he would not hesitate to prosecute political cases, providing they are felonies and not cases that belong under the jurisdiction of the state Fair Political Practices Commission.

“I think there has been a very substantial amount of resources from the D.A.’s office diverted to prosecution of matters that are really quite political,” he said. “If there are types of things that are criminal and should be treated more severely than the FPPC might treat them, then it’s a matter for the district attorney.”

In the end, each candidate argues that he simply is the better man for the job.

“I think I have a greater perspective,” Rackauckas said. “I’ve been a private attorney, a prosecutor and a judge. I’ve seen the system from different points of view. I think I know what it takes to make things happen.”

Wade said he has the skills needed to run the office that he loves.

“We’re talking about managing an office with over 1,000 employees and a $70-million budget, 235 attorneys,” he said. “I’m somebody who has been in that system, somebody who has the knowledge and the experience. I think it’s a major distinction between me and my opponent.”