Hal Jewett is the "Jack McCoy" of the Contra Costa District Attorney’s Office, says Contra Costa Times Political Editor Lisa Vordergruebben. Her blog Tuesday published a letter that Jewett has sent to the Times, criticizing the paper for too easily dismissing allegations that one candidate’s supporters in the DA’s office violated the law.
The prosecutor’s union has endorsed one of the candidates, Dan O’Malley, a former Contra Costa County prosecutor and Superior Court judge. That means, the union is not endorsing the second candidate Mark Peterson, who is currently another senior prosecutor in the office.
This latest brouhaha stems from Peterson crying foul about a January 14 fundraiser hosted for O’Malley by some of his DA’s office supporters. Peterson alleged that these O’Malley supporters acted illegally by hosting this fundraiser and asking the 50 invited prosecutors to donate money. An Internet invitation, written by prosecutor Johanna Schonfield, asked guests to "join Dan O'Malley and your fellow Deputy District Attorneys ... at an intimate fundraiser." It suggested that prosecutors give $200 to $500.
Peterson said the fundraiser ran afoul of a law that bars candidates for office, and employees of that office, from soliciting donations from others in the agency.
Barry Grove, president of the Deputy District Attorney's Association, said the e-mail invitation was written by a young attorney who wasn’t familiar with the law. Both he and O’Malley said O’Malley didn’t know about the solicitation for donations and asked that it be removed once he got wind of it. Furthermore, O'Malley's campaign has decried Peterson's attempts at an "ill-conceived smear campaign" over this incident, in which, the campaign says, he made other false allegations, such as who was or was not invited to the event, before investigating the facts.
Vordergruebben says in a recent column she questioned whether the incident was sufficient enough to warrant a criminal investigation. Her newspaper also published an editorial, saying that Mark Peterson “needs to stop his reckless accusations” against O’Malley and his supporters. In the view of the Times, this is simply the case of some lawyers getting “sloppy,” and “perhaps technically violating the law.” It is a diversion from the real issues that the candidates need to talk about.
Personally, I have not decided who I’ll vote for. But, this whole race has turned out to be disappointing and disturbing. First of all, aren’t prosecutors, with their JDs, supposed to be smarter than this? And, aren’t prosecutors hired to work on the public’s behalf, upholding the law?
It might be true, technically and legally, that no crime occurred. And, maybe some of Peterson's accusations against O'Malley crossed a line. But, so did the actions of O'Malley's supporters in asking for the donations.
The whole incident and back-and-forth accusations smell. Like a murder victim’s corpse left rotting in a house for a few days.
Sorry for my lame attempt at a Raymond Chandler-esque simile, but I’m not the only one who smells something rotten going on in our District Attorney's Office. And that person is Jewett.
It was with some dismay I read today’s editorial telling a candidate for public office to “shut up”, and castigating him for reporting a violation of campaign fundraising laws to the attorney general. Your remarks were profoundly ironic and rude.
Your conclusions were wrong. Any newspaper (or other advocate of the 1st Amendment) telling any citizen to “shut up," or trivializing the violation of a law designed to prevent undue influence being placed on public employees vested with a public trust, is itself irresponsible.
As a prosecutor of 27+ years in this county, I have never seen the kind of political environment that exists in this office now. Our new prosecutors union has long since exceeded its stated purpose of maximizing benefits for its members, and now seeks to exercise substantial influence in the political arena.
Historically, that was the job of the district attorney … but times have apparently changed. I have never previously seen a solicitation for monies even approaching the $500 mentioned in the “e-vite” here. The suggestion that the idea of this solicitation originated with some young lawyer who didn’t know better is ludicrous.
The assertion that this wasn’t a fundraiser by prosecutors for prosecutors (with a few police detectives thrown in the mix for good measure) is poppycock. However, the truly disturbing aspect of this story is not the violation of a relatively obscure law. It is the denials; it is lawyers in full spin mode prepared to sacrifice a young attorney to avoid responsibility. Your editorial did not help.
This office is almost daily treated to closed door sessions of experienced lawyers and managers talking political strategy. Banter in the hallways includes experienced prosecutors openly singing about “war”.
It doesn’t take a rocket scientist for the low and mid-level attorneys to figure out which side their bread is buttered on. The effect of all this on the clerical personnel is undoubtedly numbing. It is precisely this kind of environment the statute you pay lip service to was designed to prevent.
With all of the posturing going on, one thing is certain: in our zeal to promote our candidate (whoever that may be) we are quickly loosing sight of our client (The People).
If your newspaper is not the partisan rag your editorial suggests it is, you should carefully and critically examine all of the assertions being made by all of the candidates, both about themselves and about their opponents.
If the public is being misled or the law is not being obeyed, it is your responsibility to expose the truth regardless of your predilections. That’s what Mark Peterson did (while trying murder case after murder case, by the way).
Truth first.
Harold W. Jewett
