Rackauckas for District Attorney

For the first time in decades, Orange County voters will not have the chance to return an incumbent district attorney to office. Dist. Atty. Mike Capizzi is running for state attorney general. As his successor, we endorse Superior Court Judge Anthony J. Rackauckas.

Rackauckas was a deputy district attorney for 16 years. By most accounts, he was superb, a first-rate prosecutor, especially of murderers. He left to help the campaign to remove Rose Elizabeth Bird as chief justice of the California Supreme Court. After several years of private practice, Rackauckas was appointed to the Municipal Court bench by Gov. George Deukmejian. In 1993, Gov. Pete Wilson appointed him to the Superior Court.

Rackauckas has not been a pro-prosecution hard-liner as judge. Instead, he has shown a good temperament, interpreting the law by precedent whether it favored prosecution or defense. That’s what a judge should do and it bodes well for his tenure as the county’s top prosecutor.

Capizzi has had mixed success in his tenure as district attorney. His prosecutors have done a generally good job on the nuts-and-bolts cases that constitute the majority of a district attorney’s office: drugs, burglary, robbery. But the office had a tougher time of it in trying to prosecute Orange County supervisors after the bankruptcy. The only penalty if the prosecutions were successful would have been removal from office. And an appeals court rejected the charges Capizzi had lodged.

The district attorney’s prosecution of Assemblyman Scott Baugh (R-Huntington Beach) on charges stemming from Baugh’s 1995 election angered some in the Republican establishment, who contended that the proper venue for the charges was the state Fair Political Practices Commission. However, Capizzi won guilty pleas from several other defendants in the Baugh case. Rackauckas has promised to prosecute political corruption cases where warranted.

Capizzi has endorsed Assistant Dist. Atty. Wallace Wade as his successor. However, the union representing deputy district attorneys and a separate union whose members include investigators in the district attorney’s office have endorsed Rackauckas. Those endorsements deserve serious consideration.

Many prosecutors have complained that Capizzi micromanages the office, undercutting their opportunities to decide what charges should be filed and how a case should ultimately be decided.

Rackauckas has criticized the office for taking away the freedom of deputies and says he will restore it. Rackauckas has the experience as lawyer, prosecutor and judge to do a good job as district attorney and merits election to the post.

All things considered, it is time for a change in the district attorney’s office and for new and able leadership from the outside. Rackauckas promises to provide that fresh vision.