The Prosecutor: R. Lewis Cope, 54

Cope has been a deputy district attorney in the San Bernardino County District Attorney’s Office since 1983 and is now assigned to the major crimes unit where he handles death penalty cases, violent crimes and other high profile prosecution. He had previously spent one year practicing family law, criminal defense and some business law at a Thousand Oaks-based law firm. After graduating from law school worked as a law clerk and later a special investigator for the State Bar of California. He has handled a number of high profile cases including the 2002 double murder of a prominent Highland real estate broker and his wife, the case of serial rapist Timothy Lewis Jones who was sentenced to 177 years in prison, and the retrial of Damien Guerrero, who is charged in the 2003 shooting death of 18-year-old Kelly Bullwinkle of Redlands. He earned his B.A. at Brigham Young University in 1977, and his law degree at Pepperdine University School of Law in 1980.