Garcetti and Cooley in Spirited Exchange on 3-Strikes Law

In one of their most freewheeling debates, the two candidates for Los Angeles County district attorney butted heads Monday night over enforcement of the three-strikes law.

Incumbent Gil Garcetti was booed by the crowd when he said the law should not be amended. But the same crowd later cheered when he accused challenger Steve Cooley of not taking a strong position before the three-strikes law was passed.

“Well, this may not be popular to some people in the audience, but I’ll make no excuse for enforcing the three-strikes law the way the voters of this state intended it to be enforced,” Garcetti told a crowd of about 100 people at a hall in Exposition Park. The debate was sponsored by the New Leaders, an organization of African American professionals.

He went on to say, as he has often, that if a gang member is arrested for stealing a compact disc, has two prior violent felonies and is suspected in other crimes, he would charge him under the three-strikes law. The law sends career criminals to prison for a minimum of 25 years without parole.

Cooley, a top assistant to Garcetti, brought laughter and cheers with his retort: “That gang member who steals a CD every time we debate, and it’s been 11 times now, seems to get badder and badder and badder every time.”

He went on to call, as he has consistently, for a policy of “proportionality,” under which a third strike would be charged only if a criminal with two prior strikes is charged with a serious, violent offense.

“You’ve got to consider, if the new offense is nonviolent, non-serious, like stealing a CD, you’re not going to see 25-to-life,” he continued, as the crowd cheered wildly. “That is out of control. It’s corrosive.”

The cheers grew louder as Cooley cited the case of Gregory Taylor, a 37-year-old homeless man who was sentenced to 25 years to life in prison under the three-strikes law for trying to take food from a downtown Los Angeles church in 1997.

“Mr. Cooley seems to be on a roll,” remarked the debate moderator, KCAL-TV (Channel 9) anchor Dave Clark.

But Garcetti struck back, drawing cheers himself by demanding to know why Cooley hadn’t lobbied against the three-strikes law before it was passed. He also used the opportunity to draw attention to his opponent’s Republican roots, something that Garcetti, a Democrat, has sought to exploit in the officially nonpartisan race.

“Where was he before March 1994?” Garcetti demanded. “He is a Republican. He was an advisor to Gov. [Pete] Wilson. I’m the one who went up to Sacramento and said, ‘Let’s limit it to violent, serious offenses.’ Did you ever hear him urge the governor to, c’mon, limit it? The answer is, no, you didn’t, because he never did it.”

On another issue, the two told the predominantly African American crowd that they condemned racial profiling.

Cooley promised to prosecute police officers who stop people without cause, particularly if they do so because of the person’s race. Garcetti said he agreed, but he implied that Cooley lacked understanding of the issue because, unlike Garcetti, “this man has never lived in the ‘hood.” Garcetti grew up within blocks of Exposition Park in South-Central Los Angeles.

The two also clashed over the Belmont Learning Center, with Cooley accusing Garcetti of failing to vigorously investigate the possibility of environmental crimes.

The challenger charged that Garcetti had failed the students of Belmont by not being more aggressive. He said Don Mullinax, inspector general for the Los Angeles Unified School District, had accused the district attorney’s office of “a prosecutorial whitewash” at Belmont. Pointing at Garcetti, he added, “I agree, and he’s the painter.”

Garcetti defended his record in the Belmont case and said he still had three prosecutors investigating. He declined to discuss their investigation. The district attorney’s office has said in the past that it is investigating the possibility of overcharging by Belmont contractors.