D.A. Pleads His Case on Budget

Los Angeles County has lost 127 prosecutors over the last four years because of a prolonged budget drought, Dist. Atty. Steve Cooley said Tuesday.

Instead of being able to hire more prosecutors as the workload has increased, the department has lost 12% of its employees, Cooley told the Board of Supervisors during a hearing on the county’s 2004-05 budget. Specialized units have been crippled, he said, with the division handling hard-core gang crime losing a third of its prosecutors.

“Across the board, the quality of prosecution has been reduced,” Cooley said. “It is taking its toll and eventually will affect public safety.”

The D.A. asked the board not to cut his budget further and to allow him to hire at least 20 attorneys by the end of 2004.

Cooley’s testimony comes as the county is grappling with shrinking revenue, which has already prompted the closure of health clinics and jails, the release of thousands of misdemeanor offenders, and hundreds of layoffs, primarily in the Department of Health Services.

In the coming fiscal year, the county faces a double-barreled blow: a $273-million cut proposed by Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger to help balance the state’s books and a $269-million shortfall in the county’s own revenue. Comparatively, the $2.5-million cut proposed for Cooley’s department is small.

Other speakers at the budget hearing objected to proposed cuts in the county Probation Department and in AIDS services.

Supervisor Gloria Molina, meanwhile, continued to push for more accountability from the Sheriff’s Department in the wake of five jailhouse killings since October.

In the board’s regular session before the budget hearing, she accused the department of twisting facts in an unrelated case.

The December 2000 incident occurred after deputies went to the Duarte home of Barbara Ballard, an apartment manager, to investigate a fraud complaint made by the apartment owner. A scuffle erupted and a female deputy punched Ballard, who was holding her 14-month-old daughter, several times in the face, according to a report by the county Claims Board.

Other deputies tried to pull the child away from the screaming mother, knocking Ballard onto a glass coffee table. The woman suffered a broken nose, a chipped tooth, facial bruises, a fractured eye socket and a cut to her breast. She sued the county, which agreed in April to pay her $150,000.

In a so-called corrective-action report on the incident, the Sheriff’s Department said the deputy punched Ballard because the woman “was grasping the infant near its neck” so tightly the baby’s eyes were bulging and her tongue protruding.

But Molina pointed out that the original, seven-page report -- filed by the deputy who punched Ballard -- said the deputy noticed the woman’s grip tightening on the child only after punching her.

Sheriff’s Chief Bill McSweeney, who oversees training and internal affairs, said the deputy involved had been given additional training.