And for Best Cheap Shot . . .

Cheap shots are so common in political campaigns it’s almost too subjective to single out which ones reach Academy Award status. But my Oscar--so far--goes to Lt. Gov. Gray Davis, for his recent slam against the hundreds of front-line prosecutors in the state attorney general’s office.

It’s enough to make you wonder if Davis has ever been inside a California courtroom.

For the record, much about Davis appeals to me, especially his fervent opposition to offshore oil drilling and his support for stronger gun control legislation. But you’ve got to call your cheap shots when you see them.

This one came during the Aug. 18 gubernatorial debate between Democrat Davis and his Republican opponent, state Atty. Gen. Dan Lungren.

Each was trying to impress voters with his pro-death penalty credentials. During a heated exchange, Davis shot back at Lungren that “If your people had done a better job, we wouldn’t have 15-year delays for death penalty appeals.”

Davis’ right hook missed his opponent and landed on many of the loyal folk in Lungren’s corner. And below the belt.

Truth is, the people who have been pushing the hardest for shorter death penalty appeals are those same state deputy prosecutors Davis criticized.

In my years covering criminal courts, I can’t recall a single instance when the state prosecutor did not complain loudly about the delay tactics of the defense counsel assigned to handle a convicted killer’s death penalty appeal.

So I asked Maury Evans, Orange County district attorney chief assistant, and John Conley, assistant district attorney for major offenses, in case I’d missed something. Both had only praise for the state prosecutors of the attorney general’s San Diego division, who handle Orange County’s cases.

“We keep track of the progress of all our death penalty cases,” Conley said. “I can’t think of anywhere the attorney general’s office wasn’t doing everything possible to keep the case moving along.”

Orange County has a strong interest in death penalty cases. It has 37 convicted killers awaiting execution at San Quentin state prison. Nine of those 37 have been on appeal for 12 years or more.

Two of the five who have been executed in California since the state brought back the death penalty 22 years ago were Orange County killers. And state officials say the next in line for execution is Jaturun Siripongs, convicted of two murders in a Westminster grocery robbery. That would make half of the executions so far from our one county alone.

I’ve always contended that state prosecutors handling such appeals have a tough job, because in essence they are defending someone else’s case. They have to convince the appellate courts that local prosecutors who won those death penalty convictions did it by the book.

But Gary Schons, director of the attorney general’s San Diego division, says it goes well beyond defending the county prosecutor.

“First we have to defend the defendant’s own lawyer,” he said. “Because that’s the first tactic of the appellate defense attorney--to say the client’s own trial lawyer was incompetent. Then, we have to defend the trial judge. Because that’s who they go after next. Then third, we defend the prosecutor.”

You can’t expect Schons to be thrilled with Gray Davis’ crack about people like him. But Schons is mostly upset that Davis didn’t back down from his statement.

“In the heat of debate, things like that get said,” Schons says. “But I expected the lieutenant governor to back down from that statement at some point. So far, he hasn’t.”

It’s hard to be called a laggard on death penalty appeals when you are working into the wee hours of the morning to assure an execution.

Six years ago, Robert Alton Harris won a reprieve from a federal judge while he was already strapped into the chair at San Quentin’s gas chamber. Prosecutors in Schons’ office were whipping faxes back and forth between California and Washington in the hours before dawn to get the U.S. Supreme Court to overturn that federal judge and get that execution back on track.

When Thomas Thompson was executed in July, the state prosecutor assigned to his case, Holly Wilkens, had one finger on the fax machine ready to roll in case the killer got a last-second reprieve from somebody. She estimates the Thompson case cost her 500 hours of unpaid overtime, but says it was worth it.

You have to wonder if Gray Davis was talking about Holly Wilkens.

Schons has 65 lawyers in his office who must handle appeals of people convicted of things like rape, murder, drug use and robbery from Orange, San Diego, Riverside, San Bernardino, Imperial and Inyo counties. His top veterans handle at least three death penalty cases each in addition to the rest of their caseload.

Schons has spent his entire legal career--22 years--working in the state attorney general’s San Diego division.

“I’m so proud of all our lawyers,” he said. “I can’t imagine that anyone, including Gray Davis, would want to get rid of any of them.”

Despite a letter from 20 state deputies seeking a retraction, Davis has refused to admit he might have been wrong. But his press secretary, Garry South, did say that “You can’t take everything these guys [the gubernatorial candidates] say literally.”

We can’t? Then how should we take it?

Lungren isn’t above a little campaign spinning of his own, and maybe before the race is over he’ll shoot even lower than Davis.

But so far, that Cheap Shot Oscar fits nicely on the lieutenant governor’s mantel.

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Jerry Hicks’ column appears Tuesday, Thursday and Saturday. Readers may reach Hicks by calling the Times Orange County Edition at (714) 966-7823 or by fax to (714) 966-7711, or e-mail to jerry.hicks@latimes.com.