D.A.s Struggle on Ethics Tightrope

The grand jury that investigated Orange County Dist. Atty. Tony Rackauckas expressed alarm at his personal intervention in criminal cases involving campaign contributors.

But around California, other district attorneys have faced similar accusations of mixing politics and justice. To some lawyers and judges, the accusations against Rackauckas point up the contradiction inherent in the job: a district attorney is part politician, part officer of the court.

District attorneys are expected to be objective arbiters of justice even as they raise thousands of dollars from the attorneys, judges and big businesses they deal with in court.

They are guided by their own judgment about how to handle these possible conflicts of interest because state law does not address how prosecutors should react when they confront campaign contributors in the courtroom. A code of ethics published by the state prosecutors association speaks of avoiding potential conflicts but does not provide guidance on dealing with political contributors.

Rackauckas’ alleged intervention in cases involving domestic violence, burglary and consumer fraud was criticized in a grand jury report and prompted calls for further investigation by the Orange County Board of Supervisors. But Rackauckas is far from alone.

In Los Angeles, former Dist. Atty. Gil Garcetti was plagued by accusations that he used his office to help political allies. During his losing 2000 reelection campaign, he was criticized for mounting a crackdown on trademark infringement that benefited a clothing manufacturer who contributed $200,000 to his campaign, and for alleged lenient treatment of an arsonist whose grandfather was a longtime political backer.

San Diego District Atty. Paul Pfingst is locked in a reelection campaign in which fund-raising is an issue. One criticism: He took a $5,500 contribution from an Encinitas stock speculator who was later indicted on federal charges. Pfingst eventually gave the money to a victims’ rights group.

Pfingst, recently elected president of the California District Attorneys Assn., said such entanglements are hard to avoid.

“I see no answer except for these candidates not to take campaign contributions at all,” he said. “And then you’d be criticized for not being a serious candidate because nobody supports you.”

Some legal scholars and activists believe the Orange County controversy shows that district attorneys must be more vigilant about avoiding the appearance of favoritism, even if that means taking a hands-off policy on cases involving political contributors.

“While I understand that the temptations are there in a system of elections, it doesn’t excuse the abuses,” said Erwin Chemerinsky, a USC law professor. “We, as voters, have every right to believe that

Rackauckas accepted donations from 270 judges, prosecutors, public defenders and private lawyers during his 1998 campaign. Today, it’s difficult for him to consider any case without encountering a donor.

Rackauckas accepted more than $100,000 in political donations from private attorneys in 1998--roughly 40% of his war chest. An additional $5,000 came from judges and deputy prosecutors.

One of his contributors, attorney Allan H. Stokke, hosted a 1998 fund-raising event that generated more than $30,000 for Rackauckas, according to the grand jury report.

Two years later, Stokke was hired to represent an apartment company that was the subject of a consumer-protection lawsuit filed by some of Rackauckas’ deputy prosecutors. Rackauckas ordered his deputies to withdraw the lawsuit and took them off the case. Rackauckas then negotiated the case with Stokke, whose client had also contributed to the district attorney.

After his involvement became public, Rackauckas withdrew from the case and asked the state attorney general to take over negotiations. Rackauckas maintains that neither Stokke nor the company received favorable treatment.

Another Rackauckas contributor, attorney Ronald Brower, gave $2,000 to the district attorney’s 1998 and 2002 campaigns and solicited contributions from other attorneys.

In 1999, Brower met with Rackauckas to discuss an auto-burglary case involving a 19-year-old client who was a student at a military academy. If convicted of any of the 16 felonies he faced, the student would have been expelled from the academy, Brower said.

Rackauckas asked his top assistant to take over negotiations in the case. Ultimately, the student was allowed to plead guilty to a single misdemeanor, and the 16 charges were dismissed.

Rackauckas said his role in the case was minor and the outcome was fair. Brower maintains his contribution didn’t give him special access, noting he also met with the two elected district attorneys who preceded Rackauckas.

“One view is the system might be compromised, but lawyers--just like everybody else--are interested in the integrity of the criminal justice system, even more so,” Brower said. “We practice in the system every day.”

Rackauckas said he did make an error in his handling of a 2000 domestic-violence case that involved a friend and campaign contributor.

After the friend, not identified by the grand jury, introduced Rackauckas to the assault victim, who recanted the accusation, Rackauckas said he would dismiss the case if the defendant attended anger-management counseling. A deputy prosecutor had been seeking a sentence of 60 days in jail. A judge on the case had suggested 30 days.

In a prepared statement, Rackauckas noted he erred by failing to tell the deputy prosecutor about the settlement he privately negotiated. Instead, the prosecutor learned about Rackauckas’ recommendation from the political contributor at the next court appearance.

It was a group of deputy prosecutors in the Orange County district attorney’s office who asked for an independent investigation into Rackauckas’ actions and attracted the grand jury’s attention.

Rackauckas insists the criticism was the work of disgruntled employees, unhappy about personnel changes he made. Most prosecutors are protected by civil-services rules and have the freedom to speak out without fear of losing their jobs. However, Rackauckas fired one critic and transferred several others to a new state agency dealing with family support.

Garcetti, the former Los Angeles district attorney, faced a similar uprising in 1995 after his office struck a plea bargain in an arson case involving the grandson of a major Garcetti contributor. The deal allowed the defendant to receive a 16-month sentence for attempted vandalism--far less time than he would have gotten if he was prosecuted for attempted arson, the crime for which he had been arrested.

Steve Cooley, then a prosecutor in the office, sought an investigation by the attorney general’s office. Officials didn’t take any action against Garcetti, who insisted he did nothing wrong. Cooley went on to unseat his boss five years later.

An ethics manual produced by the California District Attorneys Assn. warns against working on cases that involve close friends, relatives or political opponents.

But there are few legal or ethical rules on how district attorneys should handle cases that involve campaign contributors. Rather, the law leaves it up to district attorneys to judge whether a contributor’s involvement raises an appearance of impropriety.

“What the prosecutor has to ask is, ‘Can I fairly make this decision notwithstanding the fact that this person has made a contribution to me?’ ” said Kevin Edward Mohr, professor of law at Western State University in Fullerton and vice chairman of the California State Bar’s committee for professional responsibility and conduct.

Withdrawing from all cases involving contributors would be difficult, because many district attorneys rely heavily on campaign donations from attorneys and judges in the courthouse. But Mohr and others said district attorneys should avoid personal involvement in such cases.

“It’s easy to do,” said H. Richard Uviller, a law professor at Columbia University in New York who specializes in prosecutorial ethics. “You just say to your prosecutor, ‘I don’t want to hear about that case. If you want advice, ask my deputy.’ To do the opposite--to take over the case and to actually offer a better deal than the judge approved--is so blatant, it’s really shocking.”

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Times staff writer Tony Perry contributed to this report.