Veteran Prosecutor to Move Up

For the past two years, prosecutor Greg Totten has worked in relative obscurity two miles from the nerve center of the Ventura County district attorney’s office. He rarely sees the inside of a courtroom, and many younger prosecutors have never met him.

All that is about to change.

On Jan. 4, Totten will take over as second in command in the D.A.’s office, replacing outgoing prosecutor and newly elected Judge Kevin McGee.

It is a role Totten has been groomed for during his 16-year career. As a trial lawyer, he handled everything from petty thefts to a capital murder trial. As a manager, he has supervised the distribution of child-support payments and watched over a $35-million budget for that department.

“He has tremendous experience,” said Dist. Atty. Michael Bradbury, who picked Totten as McGee’s successor a day after the Nov. 3 election. “He has worked in about every phase of the office. He’s very bright and hard-working.”

As the new chief assistant district attorney, Totten, 44, will oversee day-to-day operations of one of the state’s most aggressive law enforcement agencies and supervise a staff of more than 500.

He will also chair the committee that makes recommendations to Bradbury on when to seek the death penalty in capital murder cases, and will serve as the office’s chief spokesman.

“I think I have a lot to do,” he said, offering a lighthearted laugh during a recent interview. “I need to spend time with Kevin, obviously, learning the job. I feel like I have very big shoes to fill.”

In recent years, three former prosecutors have used the chief assistant position to springboard to the Ventura County bench. While not ruling out such a possibility, Totten said he has more immediate goals in mind.

“Right now, I just want to do the very best I can in this job,” he said. “Our first mission is the safety of this community.”

During his tenure, Totten wants to step up the fight against gang violence, provide more compassionate service to child-support recipients and increase pay for deputy prosecutors.

Reducing juvenile crime and easing overcrowding at the county’s juvenile detention centers also remain top goals, and Totten said he would like to see partnerships strengthened among educators, law enforcement officers and probation officials.

“I think, as a community, much more can be done,” he said.

A self-described “dyed-in-the-wool prosecutor,” Totten started working in the district attorney’s office in 1982 after graduating from Pepperdine University’s School of Law. Veteran prosecutor Pete Kossoris remembers well Totten’s first day on the job.

“I’ve been in the office since ‘66, and I was the one who first interviewed and hired Greg,” Kossoris recalled. “Greg came dressed real nicely, which some law students do and some don’t. I remember that he had worked his way through school at a car-rental place and [up] to management. That was impressive for a young person. It showed he had a lot of practical skills, which turned out to be the case.”

After a steady diet of misdemeanor cases, Totten worked his way up to the sexual assault and major crime units. In 1987, he began as a special assistant to Bradbury, overseeing political misconduct investigations and serving as a liaison to the grand jury.

Four years later, Totten went back to court as co-counsel on the trial of Gregory Scott Smith, a day-care aide from Canoga Park who pleaded guilty to the kidnapping, rape and murder of an 8-year-old Northridge boy, Paul Bailly, and to setting his body on fire near Simi Valley.

At the penalty trial, defense attorneys called Smith, then 23, a “defective human being” who shouldn’t be executed. But Totten and Kossoris described Smith as a predator who took sexual pleasure in killing the boy.

A jury agreed, and in January 1992, Smith received the death penalty.

Totten hopes the emotional and complex legal issues raised in that case have prepared him for his new role as chairman of the committee that recommends whether to seek the death penalty in murder cases; Bradbury makes the ultimate call.

“It’s your whole life when you are trying one of these cases,” Totten said. “And I think having done that, any time you seek the death penalty, it’s a very solemn matter.”

In 1993, Totten made an abrupt change in his career, moving to Sacramento to become the executive director of the California District Attorneys’ Assn. As a lobbyist for 2,200 prosecutors statewide, he helped push through California’s “three-strikes” legislation for repeat offenders and was involved in crafting a new statute covering aggravated child abuse.

“It was a great experience overall,” he said.

But after three fast-paced years at the state capital, Totten decided it was time to come home. In 1996, Totten, his wife, Irene, and their daughter, Claire, now 9, moved back to Ventura, and Totten returned to the district attorney’s office--this time as chief deputy prosecutor in charge of the child-support division.

Totten has worked out of a satellite office on Telephone Road, but plans to move to the main office at the county government center as soon as his replacement is announced.

Away from the office, Totten is an assistant coach for his daughter’s youth basketball team and enjoys cycling and swimming. The family enjoys vacationing at a cabin they own near Yosemite.

Totten’s colleagues expect he will take the new challenge in stride--just like so many other roles during his career.

“I think he’s going to be great--I cannot think of another D.A. who has had the same breadth of experience,” said Chief Deputy Dist. Atty. Michael Frawley, who will now report to Totten.

“He is a person of extraordinarily versatile skills,” Kossoris said. “And I think he is universally recognized as an honest and straightforward person.”