Right of Recusal

In a relatively small and close-knit county like Ventura, the danger that personal relationships could bias the decisions of public officials is greater than it might be in a larger, less personal place.

That’s why it is especially important for those officials to go out of their way to avoid situations that could be perceived as conflicts of interest.

We applaud presiding Judge Charles W. Campbell Jr. for recusing himself and the entire Ventura County Superior Court bench from a contempt hearing against two veteran prosecutors accused of withholding evidence in a death penalty case. The matter will probably be reassigned to a Santa Barbara County judge.

At issue is whether prosecutors Matt Hardy and Maeve Fox improperly withheld information about the mental stability of Michael Raymond Johnson during his 1997-98 trial for the slaying of Sheriff’s Deputy Peter J. Aguirre Jr. During the trial Hardy and Fox argued that Johnson killed the officer in cold blood; defense lawyers said their client was a schizophrenic suffering from paranoid delusions and therefore shouldn’t be found guilty of first-degree murder.

The jury convicted Johnson and he was sentenced to death.

Months later, prosecutors conceded to the California Supreme Court that they had withheld a confidential memo summarizing a psychologist’s opinion that Johnson was mentally ill. Instead of sharing that opinion with the defense or jury, the prosecutors called a different psychologist who testified that Johnson was not suffering from delusions when he shot Aguirre.

After learning of the memo, Johnson’s public defenders pushed for a civil contempt hearing against Fox and Hardy. Last month Judge Campbell ordered the two prosecutors to answer the allegations. Last week, after revealing that Judge Kevin J. McGee may be called as a witness in the matter, Campbell rightly stepped aside. McGee, who was a supervising prosecutor during the Johnson trial, later ran for a judicial seat and was endorsed by Campbell and numerous other local judges.

Sending this matter to another jurisdiction and a judge with no previous relationship to any of the parties will reinforce the public’s confidence in its outcome--and in the justice system in general. That’s especially important right now, with DNA tests producing a flurry of exonerations of people wrongly sentenced to death, and growing allegations of wrongdoing by police in Los Angeles and elsewhere.

Ventura County residents can also find reassurance in the decision of District Attorney Michael D. Bradbury to hand off prosecution of David Alvarez for the killing of Ojai Valley 14-year-old Kali Manley. The state attorney general’s office took over that case at Bradbury’s request because of his friendship with the defendant’s parents.

Alvarez, 23, recently pleaded guilty to murdering Manley after the state prosecutors agreed to drop other charges, including an allegation that he tried to rape her. That deal would make it possible for Alvarez to one day be released from prison after serving 25 years to life.

Had the Ventura County district attorney’s office prosecuted Alvarez, it is unlikely that such a plea bargain would have been made. But in this case, as in the Johnson case, turning it over to disinterested parties was the right thing to do.

Maintaining both the reality and the perception of a justice system untainted by personal relationships is more important than the outcome of any single case.