A Steady, and Controversial, Career

His job is to both prosecute and defend. And with that tricky mandate, Los Angeles City Atty. James Kenneth Hahn for 16 years has led a law office that, in sheer numbers, would rank among the biggest in the country.

With some 450 attorneys, responsibility for both criminal and civil cases, and an annual budget of $70 million, the office, like the city it serves, is big, diverse, complex.

But a review of Hahn’s record suggests that his performance has been mixed--deliberate and plodding, pragmatic and obstinate.

For years, he has aggressively prosecuted gang crime and domestic violence cases. But only recently has he been as rigorous in safeguarding the city--and its treasury--from a Police Department whose excesses are legend.

He has tackled important quality-of-life issues, from slum housing to public nuisances. He has not, as he suggests, been the dragon slayer of Big Tobacco or a quick draw when it comes to gun control.

He can take credit for an office as diverse as Los Angeles, with greater percentages of women and minorities employed now than when he took office. He also garners blame for allowing budgets and settlements to grow and for attorneys, at times, to go overboard.

As he heads into the final days before the June 5 mayoral runoff against former Assembly Speaker Antonio Villaraigosa, Hahn can look back on a tenure in which he has been quietly innovative but often timid. From where he sits, Hahn is proud of his record.

“I don’t know that anything stands out . . . that I wished I had been able to do that we weren’t able to do,” he said in an interview, ticking off public safety, consumer protection and other issues. “Because I think we have made progress in all these areas.”

A Daunting Responsibility

In Los Angeles, the job of city attorney is as daunting as can be found in government: defending the city and employees in lawsuits, prosecuting civil violations of city laws and criminal misdemeanors, and providing legal advice to almost 100 offices and departments. Since the Rampart scandal broke, Los Angeles Police Department issues alone have taken up about 25% of Hahn’s time.

If that mix of responsibilities were not enough, the city attorney also is an elected official, who unlike other politicians cannot always speak bluntly because of attorney-client privilege or the risk of compromising the city’s position in a lawsuit.

The job is so complex that it is difficult to compare with the legislative experience of Villaraigosa, particularly when the former assemblyman’s six-year tenure in public life pales against Hahn’s decades of service.

“It’s a tough job,” said attorney Dan Garcia, a former police commissioner who briefly handled the role of city attorney when former City Atty. Ira Reiner’s criticism of the LAPD left him unable to represent the department.

Hahn, a one-time deputy city attorney, has held the office’s top spot since 1985, after a brief time in private practice and four years as city controller. His efforts to make the office reflect its city have been successful: There are more women, blacks, Asians and Latinos in the office than when he took over.

When it comes to conviction rates, Hahn’s office also scores high. Last year, the rate for misdemeanors dipped to 91% after exceeding 94% five straight years.

By comparison, prosecutors in New York City had a misdemeanor conviction rate of 60%. The head of San Francisco’s criminal division estimates that her office wins 75% of its misdemeanor cases. In San Diego, one of the few cities like Los Angeles where the city attorney handles all misdemeanors, the rate was 92%.

Hahn attributes his office’s high conviction rate to the caliber of attorneys and the fact that they can develop expertise on cases because they prosecute only misdemeanors.

Hahn’s innovation of using office hearings, instead of court trials, to settle weaker cases has also helped secure a high conviction rate, said defense attorney Mark Werksman.

Yet the number of cases filed has become an issue recently.

Council members noted with alarm during a recent budget hearing that the number of criminal complaints filed by the city attorney’s office had dropped 32%, from 142,769 in the 1991-92 fiscal year to 97,450 last year.

Hahn blamed the steep decline on the LAPD, which has seen its police force shrink significantly. “Fewer misdemeanor arrests are being made. . . . That is a big part of it,” Hahn said.

Perhaps more troubling to city officials, however, is the burgeoning amount of money paid out by the city during Hahn’s tenure.

In fiscal year 1993-94, Los Angeles paid out $54.9 million on 2,124 lawsuits and claims. Last year, the city paid out $116.4 million on 1,941 lawsuits and claims.

In only the first nine months of this fiscal year, the city has spent $84.1 million on 1,626 lawsuits and claims. Of that, about $18 million is related to the Rampart scandal.

“A lot of it is that juries give a lot bigger verdicts than they used to,” Hahn said. But he also blamed the Rampart scandal: “Obviously that has cost us some money.”

Hahn noted that New York City cost its taxpayers far more than Los Angeles. New York paid out $234.7 million in settlements and judgments involving nonmedical and noneducational city services.

But per capita, Los Angeles paid out more, with $31.50 for each of its 3.7 million people, to $29.60 for each of New York’s 8 million residents.

Chicago, San Francisco and San Diego also spent less per capita last year than Los Angeles. Hahn cautioned against such comparisons.

“You have to put this in perspective considering the size of the city, the number of miles of roads that we have, the number of homes that are built on hillsides in this city, miles of sidewalks and the fact that you have 30,000 city employees--many of them driving city vehicles . . . or carrying guns,” he said.

Hahn said that he has tried to reduce liability for the city but that several of his initiatives have stalled in City Hall’s bureaucracy.

The city attorney’s critics, however, say Hahn has contributed to the growing expenses by too hastily settling cases that could be won at trial.

Police Lawsuit Settlement

Two years ago, Hahn was sharply criticized for settling a $250,000 police shooting case by using his office’s authority to split the payout among multiple recipients--none of whom received the $100,000 that would have triggered the need for council approval. The case involved a black LAPD police officer shot to death by a white officer during a traffic altercation that occurred when both were in street clothes. The white detective said he fired his gun only after the other officer pointed a gun at him and threatened to shoot.

The 1999 settlement was particularly controversial because, critics said, it seemed based on racial politics rather than evidence. Indeed, the mediating judge in the case later wrote Chief Bernard C. Parks that had the case proceeded, he would have found in favor of the city.

In the letter, retired Superior Court Judge R. William Schoettler called the settlement “political.”

Recently, Hahn stood by the decision to settle the case, citing weaknesses in key bits of evidence. “There were questions in the case,” he said. “I think we certainly had a shot at winning [it], but if we lost . . . the exposure would have been huge.”

Critics say Hahn is particularly hesitant about cases brought by prominent defense attorney Johnnie L. Cochran Jr., a Hahn political supporter.

From 1990 to last year, records show, Cochran has served as attorney or co-counsel in cases--including the police shooting case--that have resulted in at least $26 million in settlements.

Hahn dismissed the notion that his office is too quick to settle, with Cochran or anyone else. Hahn said one Cochran case involved a $4.5-million settlement for a girl who had been sexually assaulted by an LAPD officer. The city settlement avoided a $10-million jury award then on appeal.

Some prominent criminal defense attorneys agreed with Hahn that such criticism is unwarranted.

“You have jurors who hate the LAPD,” said attorney Harland W. Braun, whose clients have included several officers. “So in Hahn settling these cases, he may be saving you a lot of money. But you don’t know that, because if he settles, that is the end of it.”

Paradoxically, Hahn’s office also has been accused of stubbornly refusing to settle some cases early on, only to have the city pay out far more than it might have. The most glaring example: a $40-million police overtime case last year that might have been settled in 1993 for as little as $1 million and an update of the LAPD payroll system.

The city attorney said a settlement of that litigation was hampered by delays in the city receiving federal money for the reimbursement. Even an early settlement would have cost the city millions of dollars, he said.

On the separate issue of the programs Hahn has emphasized in office, there is no disputing that, if not always the innovator, he has often built the better mousetrap.

For example, Hahn did not create the office’s first domestic violence unit. That move was pioneered by City Atty. Burt Pines a decade before Hahn became city attorney. But Hahn did resurrect--and expand--the unit after it was cut by his predecessor, Ira Reiner.

Similarly, Hahn did not pioneer the use of civil court injunctions to battle gang members who are terrorizing neighborhoods. But after Reiner’s tenure, Hahn’s use of gang injunctions became a model for other cities, including Chicago.

Tobacco, Firearms

When it comes to tobacco and firearms, Hahn receives credit for his work--but some ribbing for his claims of being at the forefront of both actions.

One Hahn television ad says the city attorney “stopped the tobacco companies from marketing their poison to our children.” In reality, Hahn joined two major lawsuits against the industry well after others filed the first lawsuits.

The suit that targeted marketing to children was filed by San Francisco attorney Janet Mangini against R.J. Reynolds Tobacco Co. in 1991. Several other cities and counties, including San Francisco, joined the case before Los Angeles entered it in 1997, a few months before it was settled. “They pulled up the rear, with the other cities that jumped in when it was almost over,” Mangini said.

In June 1996, San Francisco also became the state’s first city to sue the tobacco industry for deceptive business practices and misleading the public about the health risks.

Hahn filed his case in February 1997, after others, including San Bernardino County, joined in. The following year, the consolidated cases were settled.

Hahn’s role in the national litigation was insignificant, said John Banzhaf, a professor of public interest law at George Washington University and executive director of Action on Smoking and Health, which has monitored anti-tobacco actions since 1967.

“I don’t think this guy is one of the leaders,” Banzhaf said. “He may have played a role in California, but California itself was one of the Johnny-come-latelys.”

Hahn defended his role in fighting the tobacco industry, noting that Los Angeles, as one of the few municipalities big enough to join the lawsuit, is one of only four California cities to share in the settlement. It is expected to receive $312 million over 25 years.

“Leadership doesn’t always mean you come up with the idea. Leadership is also recognizing when your participation can add a lot of weight,” Hahn said. “When the city of Los Angeles weighs in on something, we bring a lot to the table, people sit up and take notice.”

Gun Industry Battles

Hahn’s record in fighting the gun industry also does not completely support his campaign’s ad claim that he “led a national charge to hold gun manufacturers liable for reckless gun sales.”

Nine other cities, including New Orleans, Atlanta, Bridgeport, Conn., and Miami filed similar lawsuits before Los Angeles, according to the Legal Action Project of the Center to Prevent Handgun Violence.

On the day in October 1998 that New Orleans filed the first lawsuit, Los Angeles council members Mike Feuer and Laura Chick introduced a motion asking Hahn’s office to consider following suit.

Seven months later, Hahn joined San Francisco and 10 other California cities in filing a lawsuit against the gun industry.

But Feuer said Hahn deserves credit. “Jim Hahn has played a leadership role on gun litigation,” said Feuer, who has not endorsed anyone in the race.

Hahn defended his claim of a leading role. “I certainly didn’t say I was the only one doing it. I didn’t say I was the first,” he said. “But we have a lawsuit that is still going. Other cities have seen their lawsuits dismissed.”

Hahn’s record is also mixed on less glamorous issues like prosecuting slumlords.

He has done a commendable job going after major slumlords, activists say, but his office often ignores hundreds of other cases in which landlords refuse to correct less life-threatening problems.

“He likes to get the publicity going after the big slumlords and he does go after them, but the issue is what is his commitment beyond that?” said Villaraigosa supporter Larry Gross, executive director of the Coalition for Economic Survival.

Hahn’s office files an average of 65 slumlord cases a year, from a high of 88 in 1995-96 to 56 last year, when it put eight slumlords in jail.

But Hahn defended his office’s record. Over the years, he said, it has not only brought some 22,000 housing units up to code, but convinced judges to send more than 140 landlords to jail or to live in their own dilapidated buildings while cleaning them up. He blamed a lack of city housing inspectors for any omissions.

“It’s triage,” he said. “We do as many cases as are brought to us.”

Nowhere has Hahn’s performance sparked more debate than in his handling of LAPD issues.

From the infamous Dalton Street battering-ram raid that left two apartment buildings in shambles in 1988 to the Rodney King beating three years later to the current Rampart Division scandal, critics say, Hahn has been in a unique position to not just defend police but ensure that the LAPD and the city discipline officers who dishonor the badge.

Said criminal defense attorney R. Samuel Paz, a onetime backer of Hahn who now supports his opponent: “I can’t remember a city attorney who has had more of an opportunity to do good and hold lawless police officers to the standard of law than he. And I think he has failed miserably.”

But many with firsthand knowledge of the LAPD’s problems give Hahn praise, especially in the last several years, for pushing actions--most notably the federal consent decree--that demand more accountability by the department.

Warren Christopher, who led the commission that investigated the LAPD after the King beating, said Hahn deserves credit, not blame, for his handling of police misconduct cases. “I think he has administered the office as effectively as you could in an atmosphere where there are still serious misconduct problems, to say the least,” said Christopher.

For his part, Hahn denied that he or his attorneys have shirked responsibility by ignoring bad cops. Indeed, he said, his office notified the LAPD, the Police Commission and the council whenever it was called to defend officers in misconduct cases.

“My job is to make sure we are minimizing risk, that we are giving good legal advice to the Police Department and let the Police Department know we are there for them so they do a better job,” Hahn said.

“The police chief doesn’t work for me. The Police Commission doesn’t work for me. The idea that my job is to rein in the department is a total misunderstanding of what the city attorney’s office function is,” Hahn said.

Role in Reforms

Still, there have been many instances in which Hahn has been seen as an obstacle to reform, his mission blurred by multiple responsibilities or by underlings single-mindedly pursuing convictions.

In 1991, Hahn came under fire after his office told the Police Commission that it had the authority to place then-Chief Daryl Gates on leave and, days later, advised the City Council on how it could help reinstate Gates.

That same year, Hahn’s office was repeatedly fined by federal judges for failing to disclose information about LAPD officers accused of brutality or other misconduct. Such actions, critics say, continue to this day.

Just months ago, a federal judge sanctioned the city attorney’s office almost $5,000 for failing to disclose incriminating evidence against an officer accused of excessive force. Since returning to the LAPD, the officer has been sued seven times in federal court for alleged civil rights violations, said attorney Carol Watson, who brought the case against the officer.

“Before the tenure of Hahn, the deputy city attorneys appeared to be more forthcoming . . . and were willing to try cases on the merits. Now it is more of a game of how much can we hide,” said Watson, who opposes Hahn’s bid for mayor.

Criticism also arose in 1995, when former Deputy City Atty. Evan Freed said he was told by supervisors to ignore evidence that two LAPD officers lied under oath about the arrest of a man on a gun charge. Freed ignored the advice and instead dropped the charges.

Although he and the judge reported the officers’ misconduct to Freed’s superiors, almost two years lapsed before the officers’ actions were brought to the attention of the LAPD’s Internal Affairs Division--and then by the U.S. attorney’s office, not the city attorney. Later, Freed contended, Hahn called him “a traitor” and asked him to resign.

“I think [the case] strikes at the very heart of the prosecution function in the criminal justice system,” Superior Court Judge Kenneth Lee Chotiner, who presided over the case, said recently.

“The duty of a prosecutor is to ensure justice and that is what Mr. Freed was doing in this case,” Chotiner said. “His superiors should have followed through in notifying Internal Affairs . . . and they refused to do that. That is a tremendous breakdown in the system.”

Hahn insists that he never upbraided Freed and was, in fact, proud of the young prosecutor’s decision to “blow the whistle” on the officers.

Still, Hahn said, Freed was let go at the end of his two-year probationary period. “His superiors . . . just didn’t feel he had performed up to the standards of other attorneys,” Hahn said.

As for criticism of his performance by other attorneys, Hahn said, it just comes with the territory.

“They are plaintiffs’ lawyers. . . . They sue the city,” Hahn said. “We defend cases. We win, by the way, a lot more cases than we lose.”

Many agree.

“I have had tremendous battles with that office in the past . . . but I think he has done a heckuva job,” said attorney Mark Geragos, who is supporting Hahn for mayor.

“Let’s face it, when you get criticized from both sides of the aisle, that tells you what you need to know about Jim Hahn. And that is that he is doing a Herculean job in what I consider to be an institutionally conflicted situation.”

(BEGIN TEXT OF INFOBOX / INFOGRAPHIC)

Comparing Records

Total civil payouts, fiscal 2000 (in millions)

Misdemeanor conviction rates, 2000

Per capita civil payouts, fiscal 2000

Hahn Milestones

* Implemented gang injunctions in crime-ridden neighborhoods.

* Joined other cities in suing tobacco industry with settlement expected to bring Los Angeles $312 million over 25 years.

* Pushed federal consent decree for oversight of LAPD.

* Revived and expanded office’s domestic violence unit.

* Negotiated settlement with Smith & Wesson Co. for new safety features in its guns.

Sources: Individual cities

Vicky Gallay, Times research librarian, contributed to this story.