Cooley’s Gifts From Legal World Debated

From the start of his insurgent campaign for Los Angeles County district attorney, Steve Cooley has relied heavily upon the generosity of his many friends in the criminal justice system. Defense lawyers, judges, co-workers in the district attorney’s office--all have stepped forward to help the seasoned prosecutor finance his effort to unseat incumbent Gil Garcetti.

Some courthouse veterans say they can’t recall a candidate for district attorney receiving as much insider support, especially from judges. Certainly not Garcetti, who has repeatedly assailed Cooley for accepting the money and accused him of “putting the muscle” on judges and fellow prosecutors.

Cooley’s acceptance of donations from the legal community--especially from judges and prosecutors--has raised some sensitive questions about the campaign to run the nation’s largest local prosecutor’s office.

Is it proper for Cooley to take money from judges, before whom he might bring cases, or from co-workers, who will work under him should he win? Has he applied some hidden pressure, as Garcetti implies?

And what does it say about Garcetti, the two-term incumbent, that so many people who have firsthand experience with his work are now opening their wallets to unseat him?

In the run-up to the March 7 election, 65 current or retired judges and court commissioners contributed to Cooley’s campaign, as did 39 deputy district attorneys. Although Garcetti raised far more money overall, Cooley finished first in that election, forcing the incumbent, who finished second, into a November runoff.

The day after the March election, Garcetti lashed out at his challenger. “He takes money from deputy D.A.s, he takes money from judges, he puts the arm on judges, the arm on deputy D.A.s,” he told reporters. “He compromises his very integrity to do that. You just cannot do that in this day and age as the district attorney.”

Later, in a radio debate with Cooley, Garcetti returned to the theme and elaborated on his own standards: “I, and every other elected D.A. in recent history and every elected city attorney in recent history, has refused to accept any campaign contributions either from judges or from your own employees. That is a direct conflict of interest and if he doesn’t understand that, why is he even running for district attorney?”

Records Show Judges Gave to Garcetti

Campaign reports from the three elections in which he has run for district attorney--1992, 1996 and 2000--suggest that Garcetti is correct in saying he has avoided taking donations from his deputies. In fact, the reports indicate that he returned several contributions from deputy district attorneys in the 1992 and 1996 campaigns.

Despite his denials, however, Garcetti has taken money from judges, though not nearly to the extent that Cooley has this year. County records show that Garcetti accepted contributions from at least eight active judges, court commissioners or referees in the 1992 and 1996 races.

In an interview, Garcetti said he did not recall taking those contributions. He said he remembered only a few donations from retired judges. “If we accepted any others, then it was a mistake,” he said. “We should not have taken those.”

Garcetti said he could have received “a tremendous amount” from judges and deputy district attorneys had he sought it this year. As it is, he said, he has had to return some unsolicited contributions from judges and prosecutors.

Like Cooley, Garcetti has received many contributions from defense attorneys. But those have not been an issue.

As for Cooley, far from sounding contrite over his contributions from judges and prosecutors, he has celebrated them, saying they represent a stamp of approval by those who are in the best position to evaluate his character and qualifications.

He scoffs at the notion that he pressured anyone, saying he couldn’t have done so if he tried. He has no “muscle” to use on judges, he said, and the deputy district attorneys who contributed to his campaign in its early days had far more to lose than gain, given the long odds against his candidacy.

Cooley can no longer be called a longshot, given a recent Los Angeles Times poll that showed him leading Garcetti by a margin of 55% to 18%. The next campaign spending reports are not due until July, but Cooley acknowledges that he has received many more donations from within the criminal justice system since the March primary.

Should he win in November, he said, he will not accept any contributions from deputy district attorneys to help retire his campaign debt, and probably would ban such contributions if he were to run for reelection.

That might suggest that he finds something wrong with accepting contributions from within his office, but he insisted that he isn’t applying a double standard. “Right now, I’m not their boss; I’m their colleague,” he said.

Cooley wins support in this position from former Dist. Atty. John Van de Kamp, who said Garcetti was correct in saying he hadn’t taken contributions from within the office--but that he never had to run as a challenger, having been appointed initially.

“Steve’s in a little different situation,” he said. “He is an outsider looking in, and where do you turn? One of the first places you turn is to the people you know best, who are inside the office.”

Van de Kamp added that, while he never solicited contributions from judges, he probably accepted some and sees nothing wrong with that.

The practice of accepting contributions from judges and prosecutors is unquestionably legal. The 1st Amendment protects the right of citizens to participate in politics. Even judges, who are bound by strict guidelines laid down in the Judicial Canon of Ethics, are allowed to contribute up to $500 annually to a campaign.

Opinions Split on the Ethics Involved

A trickier question is whether the practice is ethical. Here, opinion is more divided.

“Probably in an ideal world, it would be better for this not to happen,” said UCLA law professor Daniel Lowenstein, former chairman of the state Fair Political Practices Commission. Judges in particular, he said, are supposed to maintain an attitude of impartiality, and contributing to a prosecutor’s campaign could threaten that.

The California Judicial Conduct Handbook instructs judges that, while they have the right to contribute to a campaign, they are not allowed to endorse a candidate or otherwise participate in politics. “Abstention from political activity is critical to the maintenance of an independent judiciary,” the handbook says.

Jesse H. Choper, a professor at UC Berkeley’s Boalt Hall School of Law, said he was surprised that deputy district attorneys were even allowed to contribute. “People shouldn’t have to feel that they have to buy their jobs, or pay to keep their jobs,” he said.

Those who contributed to Cooley were adamant that they felt no pressure to contribute, and believed they were doing the right thing.

“Just because we’re judges, we’re certainly not prohibited from contributing,” said Superior Court Judge James Bascue, who contributed the maximum of $500. “And I feel it’s absolutely appropriate for judges to be interested in the administration-of-justice issues that affect the county in which they serve.”

Anyway, he said, “I defy anyone to find a judge, or for that matter a district attorney who contributed to this race, who did so because of an arm being put on them. Show me one. Prove it up.”

Garcetti said he simply meant that Cooley had solicited funds, as opposed to accepting them unsolicited.

“The implicit threat is--or the implicit promise is--’Hey, c’mon, you know, come in with me. If you do, you’re one of our friends; if you don’t, we’ll remember,’ ” Garcetti said.

Eric Younger, a private judge who is related to Cooley by marriage and is the son of the late district attorney and state attorney general Gen. Evelle Younger, said he doubted that any candidate had ever received as much support from judges in Los Angeles County--a reflection, he said, of Cooley’s standing in the legal community.

“They’re overwhelmingly for him, and not anti-Garcetti,” he said.

Others said the support represented a mixture of dissatisfaction with the incumbent and respect for the challenger.

Superior Court Judge Juelann K. Cathey, who presides over a family court in the San Fernando Valley, said she was unhappy with Garcetti’s handling of child support issues. She said she knew Cooley from his days as head deputy in charge of the district attorney’s San Fernando bureau.

“I found him to be rational and competent and capable, and he knows the law,” she said. “He’s just first class.”

Like most of the judges who contributed to Cooley’s campaign, Cathey is a former prosecutor. Although she worked for the district attorney in Colusa County, many of the other judges who contributed are former Los Angeles County prosecutors who worked with Cooley. Similarly, most of the deputy district attorneys who contributed have worked alongside Cooley and consider him a friend.

“We have the most to gain and the most to lose in this election,” said Deputy Dist. Atty. Bob Foltz, one of Cooley’s closest friends in the office, who contributed $1,000. He said he was only frustrated that the law prohibited him from giving more. “I would mortgage my house and give more if I could,” he said.