The wrongful conviction of an innocent person should be every prosecutor’s greatest concern
(FUCKING LAUGHABLE AT BEST OC DA IS A HARD NOSED ASHOLE MORON VINDICTIVE 2 FACED PAY TO PLAY CRIMINAL HIMSELF, SO YEAH I CALL BULLSHIT CIU).
A prosecutor’s highest priority should be ensuring innocent people are never prosecuted.

The Conviction Integrity Unit (“CIU”) of the OCDA investigates claims of factual innocence presented by defendants who were convicted in the County of Orange, California. 

A defendant or attorney seeking to have a conviction reviewed should complete the Conviction Integrity Intake Form and submit it to the OCDA

cited https://orangecountyda.org/ciu/

Conviction Integrity Unit (“CIU”) of the Orange County District Attorney OCDA

 

OCDA OFFICE BUREAU OF INVESTIGATION

The Orange County District Attorney’s Office – Bureau of Investigation supports the prosecutorial and law enforcement endeavors of the District Attorney. It provides a wide range of policing services tasked with suppressing crime and ensuring all criminal cases filed in Orange County are thoroughly investigated.

The Bureau of Investigation (Bureau) is the Orange County District Attorney’s Office (OCDA) law enforcement division. The Bureau is comprised of more than 130 sworn police Investigators who are seasoned law enforcement professionals recruited from other law enforcement agencies. District Attorney Investigators have extensive investigative experience, highly developed technical skills, exemplary work records, and an outstanding personal history. The Bureau also employs 90 non-sworn support team members.

Investigators assist prosecutors in trial by developing leads and locating additional witnesses, uncooperative or reluctant witnesses, ensuring the safety of victims and witnesses, and engaging in trial strategy with their prosecutor partners.

Their work is extensive, includes writing and serving search and arrest warrants, investigating original cases in complex matters, and going the extra mile to ensure the law is enforced in a just, honest, efficient, and ethical manner.

The Bureau’s “Special Assignments” unit responds to and investigates officer-involved shootings, custodial deaths, police officer criminal misconduct allegations, public corruption, and other sensitive or complex investigations. In addition, OCDA Investigators are assigned and participate on 10 different local, state, and federal task forces. These task forces allow law enforcement to leverage the abilities and expertise of the various participating agencies, which results in coordinated and effective investigations of the highest level crimes.

OCDA Investigator Expertise

• AB 109 Task Force
• Automobile Insurance Fraud
• Branch Court Services
• Child Abduction
• Child Abuse
• Civil Gang Injunctions
• Cyber Crimes
• DEA Task Force
• Cold Case Homicide Task Force
• Consumer Protection
• DNA Collection
• DNA Investigations
• Elder Abuse
• Environmental Protection
• Family Protection
• Felony Panel
• Gangs
• Homicide
• Human Trafficking Task Force
• In-Home Support Services Fraud
• Insurance Fraud
• Juvenile
• Major Fraud
• Medical Insurance Fraud
• Narcotics Enforcement Team 
• Orange County Auto Theft Task Force (OCATT)
• OC Gang Reduction and Intervention Partnership (GRIP)
• Orange County Housing Fraud
• Orange County Regional Computer Forensics Laboratory (RCFL)
• Organized Crime
• Professional Standards Division
• Protective Services Unit/Threat Assessment
• Public Assistance/Welfare Fraud
• Real Estate Fraud
• Sexual Assault
• Sober Living Task Force (SLIP)
• Special Assignments/Special Prosecutions
• TARGET
• Taskforce Review of Homicide and Sex Offenses (TracKRS)
• U.S. Marshall Task Force
• Vehicular Homicide
• Workers Compensation

cited https://orangecountyda.org/bureau/https://orangecountyda.org/bureau/

YOU ARE WORTHLESS JEALOUS BUMBLING LYING MORONS INCAPABLE OF SURVIVAL WITHOUT A GOVERMENT JOB, TOO DUMB TO SURVIVE LIKE A CIVILLIAN 

YOU ARE THE REASON PEOPLE SHOULD USE CONTRACEPTIVES, THE ONLY REASON, YOU ARE NOT NEEDED, YOU LIE YOU  ARE DUMB AND CORRUPTED = USELESS!
TO SPARE THE INTELLEGENT FROM DEALING WITH YOUR INSANITY OF YOUR INCOMPETANCE AND BIAS 

YOUR PARENTS WOULD HAVE SAVED THE GOVERMENT FROM A TORT

YOU ARE GUILTY OF CAUSING LYING ABUSING YOUR POWER HARMING DISOBEYING A COURT ORDER AIDING AND ABETTING A FUGITIVE CHILD ENDANGERMENT AND HARM TOP MY CIVIL RIGHTS AND CONSPIRACY TO HARM MY CIVIL RIGHTS

AND YOU ARE GUILTY ARE HARMING THE REALTIONSHIP TIME WITH MY SON. YOU HAVE HARMED THE REALTIONSHIP BETWEEN Daddy & Son  –  EACH ONE OF YOU WILL PAY $$ AND YOUR REPUTATION AND ACTIONS WILL BE FOREVER CEMENTED IN WEB HISTORY.

https://goodshepherdmedia.net/daddy-son-suffer/

Maybe CIU should investigate SIU, LHPD, GGPD and the Head DA Todd Spitzer as he is the superior who through pecking order oversees the subordinates under his control.  DA Bradbury (subordinate noun/adjective/verb) subordination and subordinate control of my case has committed Malicious Prosecution, he is guilty too of not watching his subordinate as his elected office has duties he is clearly failing and other duties he clearly violates and does run pay to play games as well.

“Personal involvement in deprivation of constitutional rights is prerequisite to award of damages, but defendant may be personally involved in constitutional deprivation by direct participation, failure to remedy wrongs after learning about it, creation of a policy or custom under which unconstitutional practices occur or gross negligence in managing subordinates who cause violation.”(Gallegos v. Haggerty, N.D. of New York, 689 F. Supp. 93 (1988). This ruling make DA Todd Spitzer Negligent and a conspirator18 U.S. Code § 241 to the violation of my (42-us-code-1983-civil-action ) civil rights and is a violation of code 18 U.S. Code § 242

Before we place the stigma of a criminal conviction upon any such citizen the legislative mandate must be clear and unambiguous. Accordingly that which Chief Justice Marshall has called ‘the tenderness of the law Page 11 of 48 for the rights of individuals’ [FN1] entitles each person, regardless of economic or social status, to an unequivocal warning from the legislature as to whether he is within the class of persons subject to vicarious liability.Congress cannot be deemed to have intended to punish anyone who is not ‘plainly and unmistakably’ within the confines of the statute. United States v. Lacher, 134 U.S.  624, 628, 10 S. Ct. 625, 626, 33 L. Ed. 1080; United States v. Gradwell, 243 U.S. 476,485, 37 S. Ct. 407, 61 L. Ed. 857. FN1 United States v. Wiltberger, 5 Wheat. 76, 95, 5 L.Ed. 37.

We do not overlook those constitutional limitations which, for the protection of personal rights, must necessarily attend all investigations conducted under the authority of Congress. Neither branch of the legislative department, still less any merely administrative body, established by Congress, possesses, or can be invested with, a general power of making inquiry into the private affairs of the citizen. Kilbourn v. Thompson, 103 U. S. 168,196 [26: 377, 386].
We said in Boyd v. United States, 116 U. S. 616, 630 [29: 746, 751]—and it cannot be too often repeated—that the principles that embody the essence of constitutional liberty and security forbid all invasions on the part of the government and its employes of the sancity of a man’s home, and the privacies of his life.
As said by Mr. Justice Field in Re Pacific R. Commission, 32 Fed. Rep. 241,250, “of all the rights of the citizen, few are of greater importance or more essential to his peace and happiness than the right of personal security, and that involves, not merely protection of his person from assault, but exemption of his private affairs, books, and papers from the inspection and scrutiny of others. Without the enjoyment of this right, all others would lose half their value.”

“Ignorance of the law does not excuse misconduct in anyone, least of all in a sworn officer of the law.”   In re McCowan(1917), 177 C. 93, 170 P. 1100.

“All are presumed to know the law.” San Francisco Gas Co. v. Brickwedel (1882), 62 C. 641; Dore v. Southern Pacific Co. (1912), 163 C. 182, 124 P. 817; People v. Flanagan (1924), 65 C.A. 268, 223 P. 1014; Lincoln v. Superior Court (1928), 95 C.A. 35, 271 P. 1107;  San Francisco Realty Co. v. Linnard (1929), 98 C.A. 33, 276 P. 368.

“It is one of the fundamental maxims of the common law that ignorance of the law excuses no one.”  Daniels v. Dean (1905), 2 C.A. 421, 84 P. 332.

In Galbraith v. County of Santa Clara, 307 F.3d 1119 (9th Cir. 2002.)  held that a malicious criminal prosecution was a naked constitutional tort, and was actionable under 42 U.S.C. § 1983 under the 4th Amendment. They just said it, basically out of thin air.

Prosecutional Misconduct – SCOTUS Rulings re: Prosecutors

WHAT TO KNOW ABOUT THE TRUTH CLICK HERE TO LEARN MORE

To Learn More…. Read MORE Below and click the links Below 

We also have the Reichle v. Howards (2012) – 1st Amendment – Retaliatory Police Arrests
Retaliatory Prosecution Claims Against Government Officials – 1st Amendment

This summer, a judge ruled Orange County DA Todd Spitzer violated a law against prosecutors showing racial bias – by making charged remarks to other prosecutors when deciding on pursuing the death penalty against a Black defendant.

He may be the first elected prosecutor in California to have been found in violation of the Racial Justice Act.

Now, he’s getting sued for withholding records that could show whether there’s racial disparities in how his office pursues cases.

The American Civil Liberties Union says Spitzer’s office has illegally refused to turn over basic public documents they requested under the California Public Records Act (PRA) – seeking data on prosecution actions, case outcomes, policies, practices, and training materials.

“By acting in this manner, OCDA has impermissibly insulated the office from public scrutiny and accountability, thereby thwarting the objectives of the California Constitution and the PRA, and obstructing the effectuation of the Racial Justice Act.

What’s more, the ACLU says Spitzer has reversed himself on transparency – and won’t disclose the data he did turn over just a few years ago.

“District Attorney [Spitzer] is now refusing to produce the exact same data that the OCDA previously produced in 2019,” the suit states.

[Click here to read the lawsuit and here for the exhibits: part 1, part 2.]

Spitzer’s office says they are in fact following the law, and that the ACLU is acting as part of a political agenda.

“This is nothing more than another frivolous lawsuit by the ACLU that is completely divorced from reality,” said DA spokeswoman Kimberly Edds in a statement.

“The ACLU’s one and only goal is [to] elect soft on crime district attorneys who will implement policies that endanger public safety and in fact harm the very communities of color they pretend to care about,” she added.

The ACLU is asking for a court order requiring the DA to turn over the records and to publish certain data publicly on the DA’s website.

Spitzer was found in violation of California’s prosecutor racial bias law in June, after a review by OC Superior Court Judge Gregg Prickett in a double-murder case against Jamon Buggs, who is Black.

According to an internal DA memo, Spitzer raised alarm bells among senior prosecutors at an October 2021 decision meeting on whether to pursue the death penalty.

Spitzer asked if the defendant had dated white women, adding “he knows many Black people who get themselves out of their bad circumstances and bad situations by only dating ‘white women.’ ”

The lead detective in the Buggs case has also taken issue with the DA’s handling of the case, writting a letter to the judge saying Spitzer ruined the death penalty case by making inappropriate racial remarks and then trying to cover it up.

Newport Beach Detective Court Depweg wrote to the judge that he had been told by multiple current and former DA officials that Spitzer “made an unsolicited, derogatory, and racist comment about Black men/persons” at the Oct. 1 meeting.

The Racial Justice Act, passed in 2020, allows defendants to show racial bias by prosecutors in several ways. One is by pointing to data showing a major disparity in seeking convictions or sentences between defendants accused of similar offenses, if prosecutors can’t point to a non-racial reason for the disparity.

But Spitzer’s office has been refusing to provide that kind of data to defense attorneys, according to the ACLU suit.

“OCDA has also refused requests from public defenders who have sought data necessary to pursue Racial Justice Act claims in criminal court on behalf of people facing criminal charges, whether that information was requested pursuant to the [Public Records Act] or the Racial Justice Act,” the suit states.

DA officials say they’ve been fully complying with the law.

“The ACLU’s requests that were denied were denied as a result of being either overly burdensome or records not in possession of the Orange County District Attorney’s Office as allowed under the law,” said Edds, Spitzer’s spokeswoman.

Taxpayers are on the hook for legal fees if the county settles or loses the case.

Just last year, the county settled an ACLU transparency case filed when Spitzer was on the county Board of Supervisors.

It cost taxpayers $275,000. Most of it – $200,000 – was for the county’s own attorney fees.

That settlement centered on Board of Supervisors policies that banned public commenters from mentioning elected supervisors’ names or questioning them without permission.

A judge had ruled the ACLU would likely win its argument that the ban violated the First Amendment – especially because evidence showed the ban was enforced against people critical of the supervisors but not those who were complimenting them.

That judge, Sheila B. Fell, also ruled in favor of the ACLU in finding the county was likely breaking the law with a policy allowing immediate destruction of public records.

That records destruction policy was approved in 2017 by all five county supervisors at the time, including Spitzer.

Now, the ACLU is challenging Spitzer’s public record policies as DA.

In a report earlier this year, the ACLU cited what it called a troubling lack of transparency by Spitzer about who his office is prosecuting.

When the ACLU requested data on criminal charges, Spitzer would only provide numbers from his predecessor Tony Rackauckas’ time in office, according to the ACLU.

That’s despite Spitzer promising to be more open than Rackauckas.

Faced with that roadblock when preparing a report earlier this year, the ACLU analyzed court case data Voice of OC obtained last year.

That data showed that the most-prosecuted crime in Orange County is possession of paraphernalia for using drugs, such as meth pipes.

“Although the current OCDA’s office refused to provide updated information for 2019 and 2020, the local news outlet Voice of OC received records from the OC Superior Court that include charging data from the first year and a half of his tenure,” the ACLU wrote in its report earlier this year.

Nick Gerda covers county government for Voice of OC. You can contact him at ngerda@voiceofoc.org.

BY NICK GERDA source

“The guiding light in that office is ‘How is it going to make Todd Spitzer look?’” one former prosecutor said.

 OC District Attorney Todd Spitzer is a Professional Criminal hiding with his immunity cloak! The United States’ Most Corrupt District Attorney To Date

The head of one of the largest district attorney’s offices in the US is tanking the local justice system with his ironfisted grip on the office, using fear and retaliation against subordinates and interfering in high-profile cases to boost his public image, according to internal documents and interviews with current and former employees.

Their accounts come as the district attorney for Orange County, California, Todd Spitzer, is facing a growing list of lawsuits and accusations of racism. More than 70 prosecutors — about a quarter of the office’s entire roster of attorneys — have left over the last three years. All of the alleged misconduct, current and former prosecutors and investigators who spoke to BuzzFeed News said, is to protect Spitzer’s public persona and political career, which they said has come at the cost of morale and the reputation of their office. Justice, they said, has come second to generating positive headlines and protecting the personal brand of the county’s top prosecutor.

“Sometimes that aligns with justice, sometimes it doesn’t,” a current prosecutor said.

BuzzFeed News spoke with 11 current and former law enforcement officials from the district attorney’s office who worked under Spitzer, most of whom spoke on condition of anonymity citing a fear of retaliation. Even those no longer working within the prosecutor’s office said they were concerned that speaking out could lead to personal or professional repercussions within the small world of the Southern California legal system. BuzzFeed News also obtained internal memos, emails, confidential investigative reports, and public court records to corroborate many of their accounts. These interviews and documents show that, among other things:

• Spitzer launched internal investigations as payback against prosecutors and investigators who pursued cases that he wanted dropped or that posed a threat of revealing comments or decisions that he wanted hidden, according to three officials with direct knowledge.
• In spite of vowing to step back to protect the prosecution’s independence, Spitzer “shopped around” for a prosecutor who’d align with his personal view in the high-profile case of Grant Robicheaux, a wealthy surgeon accused of raping multiple women, according to two sources. At least one prosecutor refused to take it on because they felt Spitzer wanted charges reduced or dropped.
• Spitzer brought up race multiple times as he made decisions on criminal prosecutions and used Black prosecutors as the face of the office to deflect criticism of his record, former prosecutors said in interviews and documents.
• Two supervisors and an outside investigator have found the district attorney “not credible” when he was questioned in two separate investigations, according to reports obtained by BuzzFeed News. In one instance, Spitzer lied to his own homicide investigator, possibly obstructing justice and tainting two criminal cases, after having an “improper” conversation with the father of a young boy killed in a mass shooting, one former high-ranking prosecutor said in a legal claim.
• Though he touted himself as a victims advocate, some alleged victims have told BuzzFeed News they were publicly discredited, abandoned by Spitzer’s office, and verbally attacked by him behind closed doors.

In a statement to BuzzFeed News, Spitzer denied using the prosecutor’s office for his political benefit, interfering in criminal cases, and taking action to tip the outcome of investigations and trials to his liking. Instead, he accused critics of “coordinat[ing] efforts to embarrass me and deter me from my efforts.”

“This is no coincidence and the motive is clear,” Spitzer said in the statement. “Nothing will deter me from continuing my mission to clean up the public corruption in the Orange County District Attorney’s Office and safeguard the criminal justice system.”

He also denied an atmosphere of fear and retaliation in the prosecutor’s office, saying that incidents of discipline were meant to ferret out a “win-at-all-costs” mentality from a previous administration.

“Accountability cannot be confused for retaliation,” he said.

The district attorney was also critical of BuzzFeed News’ use of anonymous sources for this article, suggesting they were disgruntled employees looking for a payout.

“It is disingenuous to allow people speaking under the condition of anonymity to make allegations of this nature, especially when many of them have a vested financial interest in painting the office and the DA in the worst possible light,” he said in the statement. “There has not been a single sustained allegation of retaliation by the DA and to refuse to identify sources while they are allowed unfettered ability to make unsubstantiated and factually inaccurate statements is not only unfair, it is a disservice to the public we serve and the work that we do on a daily basis to pursue justice and give the voiceless a voice.”

Yet that daily work is now threatened by what insiders have called a mass exodus from the office. The office maintains a roster of about 300 attorneys on staff, and the district attorney’s office confirmed 73 prosecutors have left over a period of three years. (Fourteen returned to do part-time work on contract, the district attorney’s office added.)

But the result, sources said, has been a “brain drain” from the Orange County district attorney’s office of mid- and high-level prosecutors. Today, several officials said, prosecutors with less experience are handling bigger caseloads and more complicated cases than they would have before.

“Everybody is looking for an exit strategy because it’s just a rotten place to work,” one former prosecutor said. “That’s 100% Todd Spitzer’s fault.”

The district attorney’s office disputed the number of departures and, despite concerns from multiple supervisors and line prosecutors about attrition, said their rate was lower than other county agencies. Officials also pointed to a county program launched in 2020 that offered up to $100,000 in incentives for long-term employees to retire.

After being contacted for this story, a spokesperson for the district attorney’s office asked prosecutors to reach out to BuzzFeed News to talk about their experiences.

Four people — including one who refused to identify themself and one person who declined to be named in this article, saying they were concerned they’d face blowback from coworkers for speaking positively about their boss — spoke highly of Spitzer and his handling of multiple scandals that have plagued the office in recent years. They also described what they said was a divided office, affected by the politics of an upcoming election.

“It is a toxic environment in the sense that if you’re pro-Todd [Spitzer], you can’t say that openly in the office because so many people are openly against him,” Jeri Katheryne Neff, a prosecutor who was asked to contact BuzzFeed News.

The recent headlines, lawsuits, and allegations raised against Spitzer have fractured the prosecution office, said Beth Costello, a senior assistant district attorney who was also asked to contact BuzzFeed News.

“If I say something good and my name is attached to it, then the other 50% of the office that’s disgruntled will have an ax to grind,” she said.

She and the others praised Spitzer for initiatives he’s launched since taking office, such as expanding the mental health and recidivism unit, as well as the veterans treatment court, which looks at providing additional services and support in select cases. He’s also directed more resources to address juvenile justice, they said.

“At the end of the day, he has a huge heart and cares about his office and its employees,” Costello said.

Todd Spitzer (center) gives the thumbs-up at his campaign headquarters in Santa Ana as election results showed he had closed the gap against his rival, incumbent district attorney Tony Rackauckas, in November 2018.

Questions about how politics have influenced investigative decisions began three days after Spitzer won the election for district attorney on Nov. 6, 2018, when Damon Tucker, an investigator within the office who suspected Spitzer of corruption, was suddenly removed from an internal inquiry. But Tucker continued to check on the inquiry, calling the new investigator on the case, according to an arbitrator’s report. At one point, he called a friend at a local police department to ask about the investigation, prompting accusations that he’d overstepped his duties in pursuing a “vendetta” against Spitzer.

In a scathing four-page memo obtained by BuzzFeed News, Spitzer called the entire incident an “accidental and completely unintentional exchange” and then blasted the accounts of his own investigator and two supervisors, calling their accounts of what happened “misleading,” “aggressive,” “biased,” and “agenda driven.”

For others who had direct knowledge about how the review was conducted, it wasn’t a surprise.

Is Orange County’s criminal justice system racist?

It’s a question that’s hovered over Orange County’s DA election all year long.

And on Wednesday night it played out right in front of over a hundred residents who came out to the local Elks Lodge in Fullerton to hear a candidate debate hosted by the North OC Bar Association.

During the debate, Tatiana Turner – a Black woman who says District Attorney Todd Spitzer is unfairly prosecuting her for attempted murder for running over two counter protestors at a protest in 2020 – was ejected from the debate by the moderator after being vocal during questions and answers from candidates.

That came on the heels of questions being raised about the event’s moderator being a friend of Spitzer and a campaign contributor.

Spitzer – the County’s top prosecutor, leads an office besieged by scandals on numerous fronts – and has found himself on the defensive for months having to address allegations of racial bias and failing to protect employees from harassment.

Wednesday’s debate is the only public forum Spitzer plans on attending where he would publicly face off against the three lawyers looking to take his job in the June primary election.

In mid-February, documents emerged showing Spitzer was accused by his staff of making inappropraite racial remarks when deciding whether to seek the death penalty against a Black defendant, Jamon Rayon Buggs.

During the death penalty decision meeting, Spitzer asked prosecutors about the race of the defendants’ former girlfriends and said he had “seen Black men date White women in certain circles in order to have others around them be more accepting,” the DA has acknowledged.

When asked about those comments at Wednesday’s debate and if race plays a role in any prosecution, Spitzer said that the jury found Buggs guilty on all counts.

“It is my duty to always inquire both about what we believe we can prove in terms of our theory of the case beyond a reasonable doubt and explore all defenses. I made a decision not to pursue the death penalty because…,” Spitzer said before Kent cut him off for time.

Candidate Bryan Chehock said Spitzer’s comments were racist.

“That is just unacceptable from any public official to use language and racist comments particularly during a death penalty case,” Chehock said.

Spitzer has faced criticism for prosecuting Turner, a Black activist, for attempted murder for running over two opposing protesters as she left a rally but not prosecuting a driver who drove through a crowd of Black Live Matters supporters at a rally in Newport Beach.

Turner, a staunch critic of Spitzer, was ejected by security from the debate at the request of moderator Jeff Kent – a groomsman at Spitzer’s wedding and a major contributor to the DA’s campaign over the years – after coughing as Spitzer addressed a question on police accountability.

Spitzer publicly encouraged Kent to have her removed.

“This is like the 20th time,” he said. “She needs to leave.”

Kent had already issued several warnings to various audience members who interrupted Spitzer and other candidates throughout the debate, including Turner. He also warned attendees from the start that he would ask people to leave if they interrupted the candidates.

Turner, who interrupted the debate a handful of times, questioned why she was singled out.

“That’s not fair to keep pointing me out. That’s racist,” she said.

Turner ended up leaving the room after Kent threatened to halt the debate.

None of the three other candidates interjected about her removal.

Kent, president of the North Orange County Bar Association, contributed $8,600 to Spitzer’s campaigns since 2011 including the maximum allowed $2,200 to Spitzer’s current DA campaign, according to public campaign finance filings.

Kent acknowledged his relationship with Spitzer at the beginning of the debate and said he has contributed an average of $800 annually to Spitzer’s various campaigns since 2002.

“I met Todd while working in the DA’s office in 1992. I was a groomsman at his wedding and I want to let you know that I consider him to be a friend,” Kent said at the debate yesterday.

Voice of OC reported on Kent’s campaign contributions prior to the debate.

[Read: Tonight, OC Residents Get A Rare Chance to Publicly Question Their DA and His Challengers]

Kent said that after his contributions were pointed out, he asked the board to consider finding a replacement but it was too short notice to get someone else.

“I would have made these disclosures earlier, unfortunately, and quite frankly, I didn’t see the relevance because the way our moderator is done, I simply ask questions,” he said. “I’m not the one that decides what questions will be asked.”

The debate occurred a little more than a week after Spitzer skipped out on a debate held by nonprofits in Santa Ana.

And it doesn’t look like Spitzer will attend one scheduled for next week.

[Read: Local Lawyers Vying To Become OC’s Next Top Prosecutor Sound Off]

But Spitzer wasn’t the only one who had to publicly address a scandal last night.

Opposing candidate Pete Hardin also found himself having to defend against allegations of sexual harrassment.

In fact, many of the questions had to do with recent scandals involving Spitzer and Hardin, with questions from the audience reserved till the end – some of which had to do with police accountability.

Residents have raised concerns about public safety, racial disparities in prosecution rates and the District Attorney’s willingness to hold police officers accountable for misconduct.

The election also comes on the heels of a rise in hate crimes in Orange County, according to a report by the OC Human Relations Commission and concerns from some residents about the county leading the state in transferring inmates to Immigration and Custom Enforcement for possible deportation.

Last night those who attended the debate got an opportunity to see just where the candidates stand on some of those issues and a rare chance to publicly question their top prosecutor.

Todd Spitzer

Spitzer – who was elected in 2018 – has faced a string of allegations from career DA prosecutors of racial bias and failing to protect workers from harassment – even retaliating against a female prosecutor who reported harassment by Spitzer’s friend and best man at his wedding, Gary LoGalbo.

A county HR investigation confirmed LoGalbo had preyed on multiple female subordinates at the DA’s office – and found that Spitzer was “not credible” when denying he had attempted to retaliate against the first female prosecutor who had come forward about the harassment.

A second county HR probe found that Spitzer violated county workplace abuse policies by sending that original harassment investigation – which contained details that can identify the victims – to every employee in his office, and by trashing one of the victims in an interview with Voice of OC.

At the debate, Spitzer called LoGalbo a “pig” and said he was ashamed of their relationship that went back 25 years.

“I stood up for all the victims and said not only should they be properly compensated, that the county should apologize, our county counsel released a confidential report over my objection, and deemed it a public record. That was outrageous. Our county counsel betrayed the women in our office,” he said.

[Read: OC’s Top Prosecutor Under Fire For Allegations That He Knowingly Promoted a Pervert Who Later Harassed DA Staff]

Both Candidates Chehock and Hardin said Spitzer should take responsibility for promoting LoGalbo.

Spitzer said following what happened with LoGalbo, managers and employees have been trained on sexual harrassment.

“I am deeply disappointed that people working with Gary LoGalbo here in North Court never reported to their senior assistants or above that Mr. LoGalbo engaged in the kind of behavior he was,” he said.

Spitzer has also faced allegations from his own staff that he improperly made racial remarks when he and other prosecutors were deciding whether to seek the death penalty against a Black defendant.

He also fired Brahim Baytieh, one of the prosecutors who raised those concerns, for reportedly withholding evidence from defense attorneys in a murder trial.

At the debate, Spitzer denied he fired Baytieh, who is running for judge in the June primary, for political reasons.

“It was a murder case. He didn’t turn over evidence,” he said. “ Brahim was, and I believed at the time, a phenomenal person, and he’s beloved in the office but he engaged in this conduct and I had to make a tough decision to let him go.”

Spitzer said he watched the last execution in California of a man who he said killed witnesses to keep them from speaking at his trial.

“It was very hard to watch a man die but he deserved to die,” he said. “We have turned this state upside down. We put the defendants first like Mr. Hardin’s policies and we’ve forgotten about the victims. This is about protecting victims, not the defendants,” Spitzer said.

When asked why he had failed to hold police accountable, Spitzer said that wasn’t true.

But critics – some who were in the audience – disagree.

They point to the Kurt Reinhold shooting where Spitzer cleared Sheriff’s deputies earlier this year.

They also point to the Hector Hernandez shooting in Fullerton where Orange County prosecutors choose not to pursue charges against a Fullerton Police officer.

Asked about a lack of women and people of color in senior management positions, Spitzer said he promoted women on his first day of office and half of all prosecutors in the office are women.

It’s unclear how many prosecutors of color Spitzer has hired during his four years as DA but on Wednesday night, he said there needs to be way more prosecutors representing people of color.

“We must recruit, and bring in people of color into the District Attorney’s office. It’s one of my top priorities,” Spitzer said.

Pete Hardin

In his opening comments, Pete Hardin, a Marine combat veteran and former prosecutor, called out Spitzer for losing endorsements from other elected DAs across California after his racial statements came to light.

“He forgot to mention that he advertised endorsements that you’ve never got. How come you didn’t mention that, Todd?” Hardin asked Spitzer directly.

The former prosecutor himself has faced criticism over a memo about how he allegedly treated women when working as a prosecutor at the DA’s office.

[Read: Hardin Was Counseled About Being Seen as a ‘Womanizer’ at OCDA, Says Retired Top Official]

When Hardin was asked about the allegations, he said Spitzer put out “baseless allegations” to distract from the “failures” of his own administration.

“Todd Spitzer has been at the center of an ever-widening sexual harassment scandal. An independent investigator found that he violated the county’s abusive conduct policy and found him not credible,” he said.

Spitzer said Hardin was lying and that the memo was real.

“No one’s complained about me but if Pete Hardin were the DA, every woman in the office would be scared to death based upon his history with women in the office and the fact he had to resign and move to the [U.S. Attorney’s] Office, because that memo is real,” Spitzer said.

“It’s transparent, solid and true.”

In the memo, Hardin was also accused of adultery during his time as a Marine.

Hardin once again called it “baseless accusations” from Spitzer.

“The fact is I fell in love with a woman and we started a family and I had been separated from my ex-wife for over two years,” he said. “If committing to being a great dad and settling down with my family is wrong, I don’t want to be right.”

Hardin said he would create a reporting system that goes around the head of the DA’s office so people feel comfortable reporting sexual harassment.

Throughout his campaign and the debate, Spitzer has routinely compared Hardin and his proposed policies to Los Angeles County’s progressive District Attorney George Gascón.

Spitzer has made the centerpiece of his campaign message that he’s trying to protect OC from turning into LA.

When asked about that comparison, Hardin said he wanted to “progress past an era of scandals and lawsuits that cost the county millions of dollars and detering trust in our criminal justice system,” adding that his policies were different from both Gascon and Spitzer.

Hardin said if elected he won’t seek the death penalty in cases because it further victimizes survivors and betrays taxpayers. He also noted the state’s moratorium on executions.

“All we are doing is making the survivors go through decades of appeals that retraumatize them at every turn, and throwing good money off the bat on a system that doesn’t work,” he said. “I will seek life without parole when it’s appropriate.”

Bryan Chehock

Candidate Bryan Chehock, an attorney with the U.S. Department of Justice who’s assigned to the Drug Enforcement Administration, said the DA’s position is about trust and that he is foregoing campaign contributions from any source.

When asked about his stance on the death penalty, Chehock agreed with Hardin that it was a symbolic sentence in California.

He also said sometimes in cases, symbols matter and that some “horrendous crimes” do warrant the death penalty.

“I understand these are very, very rare circumstances, you have to take into account mental illness and circumstances in the individual case and I would never pursue the death penalty if I didn’t have unanimous consent from the victim’s family,” he said at the debate.

Chehock said that police departments should not be able to investigate their own misconduct.

“What we need to do is actually try to make the justice system more representative of the community it protects. If that happens, you will definitely see a decrease in police reports of misconduct,” he said.

Chehock said to address sexual harrassment, there should be an office run by people who don’t report to Spitzer for employees to report to incidents too.

“It doesn’t do any good to continuously train managers on a process that obviously didn’t work in the District Attorney’s office. If you give people a safe place to simply levy complaints and be heard, you’re going to have more comfort within the office,” he said.

Chehock also railed against Spitzer’s explanation on Baytieh’s firing.

“The fact that Mr. Spitzer is now claiming it took him three years to figure out this individual was in fact not turning over evidence in 2010 is either a lie or incompetence on his part,” Chehock said.

“You don’t fire somebody for something that occurred in 2010 days after he discloses your racist and derogatory comments.”

When asked about Hardin being compared to Gascon, Chehock said that name calling and labeling candidates one way or another is not really beneficial for voters.

“We need to do better in terms of having meaningful discussions to address actual issues that are occurring in Orange County. ‘#NoLAinOC’ is not a substantive discussion,” he said.

Mike Jacobs

Candidate Michael Jacobs is a former Orange County District Attorney’s Office supervisor and prosecutor for 30 years.

Jacobs was fired from the District Attorney’s office in 2001 after asking the state attorney general to investigate former DA Tony Rackauckas for allegedly shutting down investigations into friends and political allies. He was later rehired in 2003.

The former prosecutor himself is not without controversy and has faced allegations of withholding evidence about jailhouse informants from defense attorneys, according to the OC Register.

Jacobs said he has become a strong proponent of the death penalty and said he tried five capital cases successfully.

“One of my suspects has been executed and I believe it’s something that we should pursue,” he said.

“I don’t think Newsom is going to be governor forever and once he’s gone, I think that penalty would become a reality again and deserves to be and should be and if you saw some of the things I’ve seen it would convert you, too.”

He also said in response to a question about DA’s Office management that he didn’t feel women and people of color were underrepresented.

When addressing the question on the timing of Baytieh’s firing, Jacobs said he had warned Spitzer years ago about misconduct by Baytieh and believed he should be fired but Spitzer didn’t do anything about it.

He also said there was a problem in holding police accountable in both Spitzer’s and his predecessor’s tenures.

Jacobs, who served as Spitzer’s own supervisor years ago at the DA’s office, said the incumbent has compromised and undermined major cases.

The Next DA Debate

The next debate will be hosted by the League of Women Voters of North Orange County on Tuesday May 10 from 7 to 8:30 p.m. on Zoom.

Spitzer has declined to attend that debate, citing a schedule conflict.

Questions from the public must be submitted to the league by 6 p.m. this Friday with a two question limit per person. While the league did not mention where to send the question, their general email is lwvnoc@lwvnoc.org.

Click here for more information.

Hosam Elattar is a Voice of OC Reporting Fellow. Contact him at helattar@voiceofoc.org or on Twitter @ElattarHosam.

BY HOSAM ELATTAR source

As ongoing DA cheating scandals continue to unfold, a pair of key endorsements in the campaign for District Attorney and judge have now been dropped.

Orange County District Attorney Todd Spitzer is losing his endorsement from his counterpart in neighboring San Diego County, as Spitzer faces accusations from within law enforcement that he improperly dropped the death penalty in a murder case to hide racial statements he made while discussing the case.

San Diego County DA Summer Stephan – who leads prosecutions in California’s second-largest county – rescinded her endorsement Thursday morning, according to Stephan’s campaign consultant.

“I can confirm San Diego DA Summer Stephan rescinded her endorsement of DA Spitzer,” her consultant Dan Rottenstreich said in a statement to Voice of OC.

Spitzer didn’t return a message for comment.

Chapman University professor Fred Smoller, who closely follows OC elections, said it’s “super uncommon” for endorsements to be pulled in DA and judge races.

Stephan was a registered Republican when she was elected in 2017, but later changed to “no party preference” in 2019, saying she was not a very political person.

Also losing an endorsement in recent days is Brahim Baytieh, a senior prosecutor whom Spitzer fired last week, citing an investigation into Baytieh allegedly unraveling a 2010 murder conviction by failing to turn over informant evidence.

Chapman University law professor Mario Mainero told Voice of OC he pulled his endorsement of Baytieh because the investigation report provided sufficient corroboration that Baytieh had failed to turn over evidence he was required to provide the defense in that case.

“I was under the same impression frankly that Todd was a year or two ago, that one of the clean ones, one of the ones who didn’t do anything like that, was Brahim Baytieh,” Mainero said in an interview Friday, referring to improper withholding of evidence.

“So when [Baytieh] asked me for an endorsement, I gave him one. But when an independent investigation suggests that is inaccurate, and when there’s been no response from Baytieh about it, I didn’t think I had a choice, if I was going to maintain my own standard here. So that’s why I pulled it.”

Baytieh didn’t return a message for comment.

Baytieh himself is a central witness to the racial remarks at the center of the death penalty controversy swirling around Spitzer that exploded into public view this week.

Baytieh wrote a pair of memos outlining how prosecutors objected when, during an Oct. 1 discussion on whether to seek the death penalty against a Black man, Spitzer made a comment about Black men advancing themselves by dating White women.

Spitzer has acknowledged making a statement about Black men dating white women during the meeting, but claims it was appropriate in the context of the death penalty discussion.

Yet prosecutors who were in the room considered it inappropriate to bring race into the death penalty deliberations, according to the internal memos.

The controversy over the memos was first reported on by Voice of OC last week. This week, Voice of OC and other media outlets obtained Baytieh’s memos, which were later unsealed by Judge Gregg L. Prickett on Thursday.

Among the documents unsealed Thursday is an explosive letter from the lead detective in one of Orange County’s most high-profile murder cases, in which Jamon Rayon Buggs is accused of murdering two people in Newport Beach in 2019 after breaking up with his White ex-girlfriend.

Newport Beach Lt. Court Depweg wrote that Spitzer had improperly ruined the death penalty case against Buggs, who is Black, by making inappropriate racial remarks and then trying to cover it up.

“It was disappointing that [a prosecutor] and so many of his colleagues would try and cover this matter up as we all know the ‘cover up is always worse than the crime,’ ” Depweg wrote.

“In my twenty plus years of law enforcement experience, I had never heard of an entire district attorney unit being removed from communicating with the lead agency in the prosecution of a homicide,” he added.

Depweg said he’s been told by multiple current and former DA officials that Spitzer “made an unsolicited, derogatory, and racist comment about Black men/persons” at an Oct. 1 meeting on whether to seek the death penalty against Jamon Rayon Buggs, who is Black.

[Click here to read the memos that were unsealed by Judge Prickett on Thursday: Internal DA memos and the letter from the lead police detective in Newport Beach.]

In response, Spitzer said there were legal reasons communication was cut off between the DA’s office and the police department, but would not address the cover-up allegations or how he treated the victim’s families.

“The District Attorney’s Office was very limited in what we could say because we had already gone to the judge and the issue was being litigated in Court,” Spitzer said in a statement provided by his spokeswoman Kimberly Edds.

Edds didn’t have an answer when asked if Spitzer would comment about the cover-up allegations, and why the victims’ families apparently were not informed that he decided against the death penalty, despite requirements under Marsy’s Law.

Voice of OC asked Spitzer and Edds on Friday why Spitzer decided not to pursue the death penalty against Buggs, and when he made that decision. They did not provide an answer.

Nick Gerda covers county government for Voice of OC. You can contact him at ngerda@voiceofoc.org.

sited https://voiceofoc.org/2022/02/cheating-scandals-trigger-dropped-endorsements-for-da-spitzer-baytieh-judge-campaigns%ef%bf%bc/

OC District Attorney Todd Spitzer’s racial remarks during a death penalty decision meeting has now become the focus of an investigation by the county’s law enforcement watchdog.

The probe by Orange County’s Office of Independent Review (OIR) centers on statements about Black men dating White women that Spitzer has acknowledged making when deciding whether to seek the death penalty against a Black defendant, Jamon Rayon Buggs, as well as complaints about the DA’s office’s handling of its victim’s rights obligations under Marsy’s Law.

“We are investigating these allegations,” said Sergio Perez, who as OIR director is tasked under county law with investigating law enforcement misconduct, in an interview with Voice of OC this week.

“The allegations are quite serious because they get to the heart…of the criminal justice system’s commitment to treat everybody fairly, regardless of who they are,” he added.

“And whenever there’s a question about that kind of treatment, then we run the danger of a crisis in confidence in the criminal justice system. We want to be sure decisions are being made for the right reasons in the right ways,” added Perez.

“The goal is to ensure people have an objective and transparent accounting of what took place.”

Spitzer – who led the charge years ago to expand the watchdog office’s jurisdiction to the DA’s office when he was a county supervisor – is promising to cooperate.

“I am the one who originally insisted on expanding the Office of Independent’s oversight to the Orange County District Attorney’s Office. Of course we will fully cooperate with any investigation,” Spitzer said in a statement to Voice of OC.

“There is absolutely zero truth to the allegations,” he added.

Spitzer has acknowledged that at an Oct. 1 meeting on whether to seek the death penalty against Buggs, he asked prosecutors about the race of the defendant’s former girlfriends and said he had “seen Black men date White women in certain circles in order to have others around them be more accepting.”

Spitzer contends that was entirely appropriate for him to bring up Black men dating White women when discussing whether to seek the death penalty, because he “simply was exploring [the defendant’s] ability to identify, properly or not, the race of the female victim in that moment before he executed two victims.”

Yet several prosecutors in the room appear to have seen it differently.

According to a memo written by then-prosecutor Ebrahim Baytieh – who’s now running for judge – he and two other prosecutors from the meeting agreed that Spitzer’s remarks had to be turned over to the judge in Buggs’ case.

Baytieh wrote the prosecutors agreed that the comments had to be disclosed to the judge under the state’s Racial Justice Act, which requires disclosure of potential racial bias.

Baytieh also had a different account from Spitzer about what the DA said. In Baytieh’s account, Spitzer said “he knows many black people who get themselves out of their bad circumstances and bad situations by only dating ‘white women.’ ”

In his memo, Baytieh – who oversaw special prosecutions at the DA’s office as a senior assistant DA – pushed back, according to his memo.

“I then specifically stated that we should not under any circumstances give any weight or even discuss the race of the victims when we are deciding about the appropriate punishment to seek because, among other legal and ethical reasons, doing so implicates the recently signed Racial Justice Act,” Baytieh wrote.

The DA responded with an alleged story about a Black man he once knew, according to the memo.

“DA Spitzer then stated that while he was a student in college, he knew as a matter of fact that one of his fellow black students who lived in the same location as DA Spitzer only dated ‘white women,’ and that DA Spitzer knew for sure that this black student did so on purpose to get himself out of his bad circumstances and situations.”

The lead detective in the Buggs case has also taken issue with Spitzer’s handling of the issue, writting a letter to the judge saying Spitzer ruined the death penalty case by making inappropriate racial remarks and then trying to cover it up.

Newport Beach Detective Court Depweg wrote to the judge that he had been told by multiple current and former DA officials that Spitzer “made an unsolicited, derogatory, and racist comment about Black men/persons” at an Oct. 1 meeting on whether to seek the death penalty against Buggs.

Spitzer denies the cover-up allegations.

Perez said his investigation would hear out all sides.

“We aren’t conducting an investigation with a foregone conclusion,” Perez said.

“It’s our job to collect the facts and to report those facts to the people of Orange County. And that’s what we intend to do,” he continued.

Spitzer has also been accused by the mother of one of Buggs’ victims of violating Marsy’s Law by not informing her ahead of telling the court he would no longer seek the death penalty – allegations Spitzer has disputed.

Perez said he’s interested in speaking with any witnesses who have more information about the issues he’s probing.

“We are interested in hearing from people with firsthand experience with regards to the allegations,” he said.

“And we hope people feel confident in stepping forward to the OIR as an independent, objective body that will whenever possible maintain the confidentiality of those individuals while also ensuring that the people of Orange County get that verifiable, objective, independent account of what took place.”

Perez, who was appointed to the watchdog role in May 2020, wrote a public investigation report last summer that called out “troubling cultural currents” in use of force training and policy at the OC Sheriff’s Department while also crediting the department for being transparent and cooperative with the probe – “with few exceptions.”

Perez’ report found that the department’s culture may be fueling deputy misconduct, harsh treatment toward people already in custody or in mental health crises, and a lack of internal probes into unauthorized use of force.

The watchdog agency used to only have jurisdiction over the Sheriff’s Department.

But back in 2015 when he was a county supervisor preparing to run for DA, Todd Spitzer successfully led the charge to expand OIR’s jurisdiction to include the District Attorney’s office.

Now, as DA, he’s the focus of an investigation by that very agency.

Perez says he looks forward to Spitzer’s cooperation in the probe’s fact-finding efforts.

“I hope and expect that the District Attorney will be constructive and cooperative in his engagement with our investigation,” he said.

“Oversight is really important in times like this, when folks have serious doubt about the way their government is conducting its business.”

Nick Gerda covers county government for Voice of OC. You can contact him at ngerda@voiceofoc.org.

•••

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One of the nation’s oldest civil rights groups is criticizing DA Todd Spitzer for presiding over a criminal justice system the group says systematically discriminates against people of color.

On Tuesday, the OC chapter of the NAACP said it stands “in solidarity” with calls for Spitzer to resign that have been made by the group’s state chapter and others.

“We know Black people in this county are not treated fairly according to the law,” the chapter said in a press statement sent out on Tuesday.

The statement says NAACP members have been attending court hearings where people of color “were overcharged and falsely accused of many charges brought against them because the police kept hidden or distorted the facts at the time of their arrest.”

“Some of them were held in jail for an excessively prolonged period of time because their bail was set far beyond a limit that fits their actual offense,” the statement continued.

“Signing off on police reports that leave out critical evidence in the case of the accused person is a strategy but not a legal one.”

[Click here to read the NAACP chapter’s statement.]

In response, Spitzer issued a statement saying he’s committed to equality under the law and pursuing justice without regard to race.

“As the elected District Attorney, I have worked tirelessly to ensure justice is pursued in a fair and equitable manner regardless of race, origin, or religion,” Spitzer wrote.

“The Orange County Chapter of the NAACP (NAACP-OC) stood by my side along with many other likeminded members of our community as I successfully fought a ridiculously lenient sentence for a white supremacist who attacked a pregnant black woman and threatened to kill her baby,” he added.

The local NAACP statement was signed by the chapter’s president, Wellington “Coach” Bennett, and its Criminal Justice Committee chairman, David Drakeford.

In an interview, Drakeford told Voice of OC the chapter stands “in solidarity with the state president of the NAACP” who has called for Spitzer’s “immediate resignation” over racially charged remarks Spitzer has acknowledged making when deciding on seeking the death penalty against a Black man.

“We can’t continue to remain silent,” Drakeford told Voice of OC.

Spitzer says the local NAACP leaders have seen firsthand that he’s committed to equal justice.

“Through multiple meetings on a variety of cases and issues within our community, Mr. Bennet and Mr. Drakeford know better than most my sincere commitment to fighting for equal justice in Orange County,” Spitzer said in his statement.

“As prosecutors we do not determine who is arrested in this county, but we do review each case thoroughly and fairly to determine whether the facts of a case can be proven beyond a reasonable doubt in a court of law,” he continued.

“The practice of law relies on the facts and the law and only the facts and the law.”

Spitzer has faced a string of disclosures in recent weeks about alleged racial bias by him and his administration – including his remarks in the death penalty meeting and an ACLU analysis that found Spitzer’s office is continuing to perpetuate “vast racial disparities” in who gets prosecuted for crimes.

In mid-February, documents emerged showing Spitzer was accused by his staff of making inappropraite racial remarks when deciding whether to seek the death penalty against a Black defendant, Jamon Rayon Buggs.

Spitzer later acknowledged that at the Oct. 1 death penalty meeting, he asked prosecutors about the race of the defendant’s former girlfriends and said he had “seen Black men date White women in certain circles in order to have others around them be more accepting.”

In a letter to the judge, the lead detective in the Buggs case wrote Spitzer ruined the death penalty case by making the racial remarks and then trying to cover them up.

Newport Beach Detective Court Depweg wrote to the judge that he had been told by multiple current and former DA officials that Spitzer “made an unsolicited, derogatory, and racist comment about Black men/persons” at the Oct. 1 meeting.

Ahead of an all-staff meeting Spitzer held last month, DA prosecutors put forward scathing questions to Spitzer about whether he’s destroyed criminal cases and faith in the justice system by injecting race and politics into law enforcement decisions.

“In recent media interviews…you refuse to recognize that your comments were inappropriate, offensive and racist,” the prosecutors wrote, referring to Spitzer’s comments in the Buggs case.

“In fact, you doubled down on your comments as appropriate,” the prosecutors wrote in their letter, which included 7 pages of detailed questions.

Spitzer has declined to publicly say how he responded to the questions.

Voice of OC first broke the news about the existence of Spitzer’s racially charged remarks in the death penalty meeting.

Amid the criticism of his racial comments, Spitzer in recent days has posted videos of local African-American residents vouching for his integrity.

“I’ve spent my entire career fighting for equal justice in Orange County. In 2000, I fought for Kathy McCullough to become the first African American mayor in Orange County,” Spitzer wrote in the introduction to one of the videos.

The video featured former Santa Ana Councilwoman Alberta Christy describing Spitzer speaking up for McCullough’s turn as mayor after her Lake Forest City Council had refused to appoint her to the position.

The ACLU analysis – released earlier this month – found that Black people are much more likely to face criminal charges in Orange County than the rest of the population – and less likely to be offered diversion programs to avoid jail time.

The group cited figures that Black people are 2% of OC’s population but almost 6% of those who face criminal charges.

While the ACLU requested data on criminal charges, Spitzer would only provide numbers from his predecessor Tony Rackauckas’ time in office – despite Spitzer promising to be more open than Rackauckas – according to the ACLU.

So the civil rights group had to instead rely on court data that Voice of OC obtained and published last year.

Among other measures, the ACLU called on Spitzer to commit to “blind charging,” which bans prosecutors from seeing the race of potential defendants before making a decision on whether to charge them with a crime.

In response, Spitzer criticized the ACLU study – saying their report is part of a campaign that would endanger Orange County residents by weakening prosecutions in the style of LA and San Francisco.

“This report,” Spitzer said, “is the ACLU’s playbook for the failed policies of Los Angeles and San Francisco, resulting in soaring homicide and violent crime rates.”

Nick Gerda covers county government for Voice of OC. You can contact him at ngerda@voiceofoc.org.

sited https://voiceofoc.org/2022/03/local-naacp-chapter-calls-on-todd-spitzer-to-resign-citing-das-treatment-of-people-of-color/

Orange County DA Todd Spitzer may be the first elected prosecutor in California found to have violated a law against showing racial bias towards defendants.

A judge ruled Friday that Spitzer violated the state’s Racial Justice Act over remarks he made to other prosecutors when deciding on pursuing the death penalty against a Black defendant.

According to an internal DA memo, Spitzer raised alarm bells among senior prosecutors when, at the October 2021 meeting, he asked if the defendant had dated white women, adding “he knows many Black people who get themselves out of their bad circumstances and bad situations by only dating ‘white women.’ ”

That violated the Racial Justice Act, according to OC Superior Court Judge Gregg Prickett – who issued his ruling Friday when sentencing the defendant, Jamon Buggs, to life in prison for murdering two people in Newport Beach.

The law, which took effect at the beginning of last year, says prosecutors cannot seek criminal sentences “on the basis of race, ethnicity, or national origin.”

Violations can be proven by proving the prosecutor showed racial “bias or animus towards the defendant.”

Voice of OC could not find any other cases of prosecutors being found in violation of the Racial Justice Act, after searching Google News, asking the California District Attorneys Association and NAACP, and checking with attorneys who track that law.

Leaders at one of America’s oldest civil rights groups said there’s no other way to look at Spitzer’s remarks other than as racist.

“I don’t know how else you would see it,” said David Drakeford, vice president of the NAACP’s Orange County chapter, who said he was speaking on behalf of the entire chapter.

Pointing to what he described as a bias in the DA’s office over-charging Black defendants, Drakeford said Spitzer’s racial comments are “indicative of how he’s operated with Black men and with Black people in general.”

“It didn’t surprise me that he would have said that comment,” he added.

Spitzer and his spokeswoman, Kimberly Edds, didn’t return text messages seeking his response to the ruling and the NAACP comments.

In a previous statement reacting to the ruling, Edds wrote that the judge “ruled that the defendant was treated fairly by District Attorney Spitzer at every stage of the proceeding.”

The leader of the state chapter of the NAACP says Spitzer’s remarks in the Buggs case are “blatantly racist.”

“​​His behavior has been drenched in racial animus and disdain for people of color. Judge Prickett also saw his blatant violation of the Racial Justice Act, and ruled accordingly,” said Rick Callender, president of the NAACP’s chapter for California and Hawaii.

“We will never be able to obtain justice in America if we allow these kinds of blatant racist behaviors to continue!” he added, reiterating his prior call for Spitzer to resign.

Under pressure from his own prosecutors after making his remarks about Buggs dating white women, Spitzer reversed himself and dropped seeking the death penalty against Buggs, who was sentenced Friday to life in prison.

Spitzer contended that was entirely appropriate for him to bring up Black men dating white women when discussing whether to seek the death penalty, because he “simply was exploring [the defendant’s] ability to identify, properly or not, the race of the female victim in that moment before he executed two victims.”

Yet several prosecutors in the room saw it differently.

According to a memo written by then-prosecutor Ebrahim Baytieh – who’s now running for judge – he and two other prosecutors from the meeting agreed that Spitzer’s remarks had to be turned over to the judge because of the Racial Justice Act,.

The lead detective in the Buggs case has also taken issue with Spitzer’s handling of the issue, writting a letter to the judge saying Spitzer ruined the death penalty case by making inappropriate racial remarks and then trying to cover it up.

Newport Beach Detective Court Depweg wrote to the judge that he had been told by multiple current and former DA officials that Spitzer “made an unsolicited, derogatory, and racist comment about Black men/persons” at the Oct. 1 meeting on whether to seek the death penalty.

And Brenda Partch, whose son Darren Partch was murdered by Buggs, went public saying she’s convinced Spitzer abandoned the pursuit of justice for her son to cover up the racial statements he made.

Spitzer has denied the cover-up allegations.

Judge Prickett gave his ruling verbally at Friday’s sentencing hearing, according to news reports and the official court minutes of the proceeding.

As of Monday afternoon, the court’s only public record of the racial bias ruling was official notes – known as minutes – of the proceedings Friday.

“The Court finds a violation of the Racial Justice Act occurred [sic] and that an appropriate remedy has been issued,” the minutes state.

The public record doesn’t mention how the judge reached his conclusion that the law was violated.

Those minutes show Prickett talked about “the factors considered” in ruling on the Racial Justice Act violation. But the minutes do not say what factors the judge cited.

The hearing transcript would have direct quotes of what was said. But as is normal in OC Superior Court, the transcript is not available from the court because transcripts are considered the private property of court reporters.

Voice of OC asked Monday morning about getting a copy of Friday’s transcript, but did not get an answer by end of the day about how much it would cost. Such transcripts often cost hundreds of dollars to get a copy of.

Nick Gerda covers county government for Voice of OC. You can contact him at ngerda@voiceofoc.org.

sited https://voiceofoc.org/2022/06/judge-finds-oc-da-todd-spitzer-violated-racial-bias-law-could-be-first-in-state-for-an-elected-da/

District Attorney Todd Spitzer is facing explosive allegations from his own staff that he improperly made racial remarks when he and other prosecutors were deciding whether to seek the death penalty against a Black defendant – and then kicked everyone from the meeting off the case after they noted a legal obligation to disclose Spitzer’s remarks to the defense, according to internal DA memos obtained by Voice of OC.

Following news reports Wednesday about the documents, and calls from the county Democratic Party and his opponent to resign over the issue, Spitzer released his own four-page memo offering his opinion on the case.

[Click here to read Spitzer’s memo.]

In his memo, Spitzer acknowledged that at the Oct. 1 death penalty meeting, he asked prosecutors about the race of the defendants’ former girlfriends and said he had “seen Black men date White women in certain circles in order to have others around them be more accepting.”

But Spitzer contends that was entirely appropriate for him to bring that up when discussing whether to seek the death penalty, because he “simply was exploring [the defendant’s] ability to identify, properly or not, the race of the female victim in that moment before he executed two victims.”

Yet his comments were apparently not seen as appropriate by other prosecutors in the room, at least one of whom wrote a memo that has now been obtained by media outlets.

In a Dec. 3 memo, high-ranking prosecutor Ebrahim Baytieh – whom Spitzer fired last week – said the DA was called out by himself and the lead prosecutor on the case when Spitzer brought up race at the death penalty decision meeting two months earlier.

When discussing the defendant’s prior domestic violence history, according to Baytieh’s memo, Spitzer asked about the past victims’ race and made a generalization about Black men, before being challenged by prosecutors who later said those kinds of remarks had to be disclosed to defense attorneys under a new state law.

“I stated that the race of the victims is completely irrelevant and it will be inappropriate for the OCDA to consider or give any weight to the race of the victims,” Baytieh wrote in his memo.

But Spitzer allegedly saw it differently.

“DA Spitzer stated that he disagreed and he knows many black people who get themselves out of their bad circumstances and bad situations by only dating ‘white women,’ ” Baytieh wrote.

Baytieh – who oversaw special prosecutions at the DA’s office as a senior assistant DA – then pushed back again, according to his memo.

“I then specifically stated that we should not under any circumstances give any weight or even discuss the race of the victims when we are deciding about the appropriate punishment to seek because, among other legal and ethical reasons, doing so implicates the recently signed Racial Justice Act (AB 2542),” Baytieh wrote.

The DA responded with an alleged story about a Black man he once knew, according to the memo.

“DA Spitzer then stated that while he was a student in college, he knew as a matter of fact that one of his fellow black students who lived in the same location as DA Spitzer only dated ‘white women,’ and that DA Spitzer knew for sure that this black student did so on purpose to get himself out of his bad circumstances and situations.”

Later in December, Baytieh wrote that the DA’s office has a legal obligation to turn his memo about the meeting over to a judge to decide whether it has to be disclosed to the defense, under a law that requires prosecutors to turn over any evidence of possible racial bias in the handling of a case.

“In my opinion and in my legal judgment, the most prudent course of action, and the right thing to do, is for our office to discover to the defense attorneys the attached memo documenting the discussion in question,” Baytieh wrote in a Dec. 22 memo to Spitzer and Spitzer’s top deputy, Shawn Nelson.

Baytieh said he was guided by a Supreme Court ruling: “The prudent prosecutor will resolve doubtful questions in favor of disclosure.”

“By doing so, our office will be in full compliance with our discovery obligations under the Racial Justice Act as well as other statutory and constitutional mandates.”

Baytieh wrote that the prosecutor assigned to the case – as well as that prosecutor’s supervisor – agreed with his analysis.

A few weeks later, Spitzer pulled Baytieh and the other prosecutors who heard his alleged racial remarks off the case, assigned it to a new prosecutor, said he was not going to seek the death penalty and ordered those who were at the Oct. 1 meeting to not to discuss the case with the new prosecutor.

Those who were at the meeting – known as the Special Circumstances Committee – “are recused and walled off from any involvement in People V. Buggs,” Spitzer wrote in a Jan. 26 memo reviewed by Voice of OC.

Spitzer announced he would not seek the death penalty, allegedly without telling the victims’ families as required by Marsy’s Law, a victims’ rights law Spitzer has been a high-profile champion of.

The DA disputed Baytieh’s characterization of his race remarks, saying Baytieh’s allegations were nothing more than “an act of pure desperation by a prosecutor who knew” he was being investigated for misconduct in a separate case, and “was willing to do anything to protect himself, even fabricating facts to embarrass the District Attorney.”

Spitzer said no one – including Baytieh – raised concerns about his Oct. 1 comments until months later.

Spitzer also provided Voice of OC a portion of an email chain (LINK), in which Baytieh apparently wrote on Jan 21 he was following up on a conversation with Spitzer the day before about his memo describing Spitzer’s race-related comments at the death penalty meeting.

Baytieh wrote that the memo would “continue to be accurate” if it says Spitzer declared that “he knows many black people who enhance their status by only dating ‘white women.’ ”

That would be a change from the original memo, which said Spitzer said “he knows many black people who get themselves out of their bad circumstances and bad situations by only dating ‘white women.’ ”

Baytieh wrote his email to Spitzer, the DA’s top deputy Shawn Nelson and DA Special Counsel Pat Dixon, according to the document Spitzer provided.

[Click here for Baytieh’s email that Spitzer provided and here for a statement Spitzer issued Wednesday afternoon after this article was first published.]

Baytieh didn’t return a phone message seeking comment.

Buggs is accused of fatally shooting two people – Wendi Miller of Costa Mesa and Darren Partch of Newport Beach – in Partch’s Newport Beach apartment in 2019, and then showing up at an Irvine apartment with a gun while looking for someone connected to his ex-girlfriend.

Buggs’ ex-girlfriend had obtained a restraining order against him in the months before the murders, in which she alleged he broke into her home and made her fear for her life, according to records reviewed by the Los Angeles Times.

An attorney for Partch’s mother said she was never informed that the death penalty wasn’t being sought until after it showed up in public court records.

“She has told me that she received no word from the Orange County DA’s office prior to a decision on what sentence they would be seeking, death or life without the possibility of parole,” said Rick Welsh, who represents Darren Partch’s mother, Barbara Partch.

“She’s aware of the allegations in this memo about the statements attributed to Mr. Spitzer. And she is so angry and she is so saddened. And she believes that as a result of what has transpired, the man who killed her son has won,” he added.

Baytieh’s memos are now in front of a judge who’s deciding whether they have to be disclosed to the defendant’s attorneys under California’s new Racial Justice Act, which requires DAs to turn over all evidence relevant to whether prosecution decisions are being made based on race or ethnicity.

Judge Gregg L. Prickett could issue his decision any day.

Voice of OC first broke the story about the existence of the memo last week when Spitzer abruptly fired Baytieh.

The racism allegations are now impacting multiple separate campaigns in the June election.

Spitzer is running for a heated re-election as DA, while Baytieh seeks a competitive open judge seat.

Peter Hardin, a Democrat who’s challenging Spitzer in the DA race, as well as the county Democratic Party, called on Spitzer to resign over his racial statements during the death penalty deliberations.

“Todd Spitzer’s consideration of race while deciding whether or not California should execute a black man isn’t just appalling, it’s disqualifying,” Hardin said in a statement Wednesday after news broke about the memos.

“Our system of justice must be colorblind, and the chief law enforcement officer just showed himself to be anything but. Todd Spitzer’s racist remarks and dated thinking have infected cases across the office and cast a shadow over every prosecution involving a person of color.”

Meanwhile, Spitzer’s top deputy Nelson also is running for an open judge seat. He didn’t immediately return a message for comment.

The judge now deciding on disclosing the memos is not running for re-election, and one of the candidates running for his seat is Steve McGreevy, one of the prosecutors whom Spitzer says helped Baytieh with legal research about his comments at the death penalty meeting.

§

While Spitzer fired Baytieh on the heels of his memo, Spitzer has been painting a very different picture about why he fired the former high-ranking prosecutor.

In a statement last week to Voice of OC, Spitzer attributed Baytieh’s ouster to an investigation he commissioned into evidence that Baytieh improperly withheld evidence from defense attorneys in a more than decade-old case.

Last year, Judge Patrick Donohue tossed out a 2010 conviction of Paul Gentile Smith for a Sunset Beach murder after public defenders forced Spitzer to acknowledge that Baytieh had failed to turn over informant evidence that had to be legally disclosed to defense attorneys – the same allegation made by OC public defenders in previous years.

Last week, Spitzer told Voice of OC he took immediate action after those disclosures came out last August.

“I immediately hired an independent law firm to investigate whether there was a failure by the prosecutor to properly turn over discovery and whether the prosecutor was truthful in all subsequent and related inquiries by the United States Department of Justice,” Spitzer said last Wednesday.

“Yesterday, that independent investigation was completed,” he added.

“As a result of those findings, the prosecutor is no longer employed by the Orange County District Attorney’s Office.”

Nick Gerda covers county government for Voice of OC. You can contact him at ngerda@voiceofoc.org.

sited https://voiceofoc.org/2022/02/oc-prosecutors-challenge-da-spitzer-for-bringing-race-into-death-penalty-decision/

A high-ranking prosecutor has quit her job of 25 years and is now joining other District Attorney staff in taking aim at their own boss – coming out with an explosive legal claim saying DA Todd Spitzer made race-based decisions, jeopardized a mass shooting case and belittled sexual harassment victims in his office who came forward against a friend he had promoted.

Tracy Miller, who oversaw the DA’s branch court offices and felony fraud units, says she left her job of 25 years last month after facing months of retaliation from Spitzer and his top deputy Shawn Nelson for refusing to go along with their unethical behavior.

In a legal claim she filed Tuesday, Miller said Spitzer made a host of improper race-based decisions – including saying he needed “a brown or a black face” from his staff with him at a meeting with the civil rights group NAACP, and “suggesting a prosecutor be assigned a case, because she was African-American.”

She also alleges Spitzer jeopardized the prosecution of last year’s mass shooting in Orange by talking to a victim without his attorney present, “discussing favorable treatment” with the witness in a separate case against him, and “seeking to withhold the true facts of that contact” by making “materially false” statements about it when interviewed about it internally.

And when Miller came forward to report sexual harassment of her female subordinates by Spitzer’s friend Gary LoGalbo  – which a county investigation later confirmed as true – Miller says Spitzer and his top deputy Shawn Nelson dismissed the victims.

“Chief Assistant District Attorney Shawn Nelson, in the presence of OCDA Todd Spitzer, would repeatedly say that Gary LoGalbo did not have real victims of sexual harassment,” Miller wrote.

“Not only was this information false, but the statement by Nelson and acceptance by Spitzer created a hostile working environment intended to silence reporters of harassment,” she added.

[Click here to read Tracy Miller’s legal claim.]

In response, Spitzer is taking direct aim at Miller, saying she’s part of a conspiracy with ex-prosecutor Brahim Baytieh to attack him as he runs for re-election.

“It is blatantly obvious that going into my re-election that both Baytieh and Miller coordinated efforts to embarrass me and deter me from my efforts to reverse the ‘win at all costs’ mentality which involved violating the constitutional rights of defendants by cheating and failing to discover evidence to the defense,” Spitzer wrote in a statement.

“These two managers were indoctrinated by a 20-year prior administration that taught you how to cheat, seek revenge, and eviscerate your enemies. Despite good faith efforts it was impossible to change their entrenched attitudes and behavior,” he added.

“This is no coincidence and the motive is clear. The Ebrahim Baytieh false memo leaked from the Buggs Special Circumstances Meeting in a failed attempt to extort me from firing Baytieh for prosecutorial misconduct and Miller’s pile-on accusations lined up perfectly with the filing deadline for District Attorney re-election just two weeks away.”

[Click here to read Spitzer’s full statement.]

Nelson, who is running for judge in the June election, didn’t return a phone message for comment.

Miller’s claim comes as DA staff rebel against Spitzer, with the prosecutors’ unions firing off a host of scathing questions they want answered about whether he’s destroyed criminal cases and faith in the justice system by injecting race and politics into law enforcement decisions.

One of the unions – the Association of Orange County Deputy District Attorneys – and their political action committee previously endorsed Spitzer, but are now raising the specter of pulling their support, given disclosures in recent weeks.

OC Democratic Party leader Ada Briceño and the California chapter of the NAACP have called for Spitzer’s resignation, while sources tell Voice of OC that county GOP Chairman Fred Whitaker publicly defended Spitzer at the party central committee’s meeting on Monday evening.

Three elected DAs – two of whom are from neighboring counties – also have pulled their endorsements of Spitzer, in a rare move.

Two weeks ago, Voice of OC broke the story of the existence of Spitzer’s racial remarks that complicated the death penalty case against Jamon Rayon Buggs, which is at the center of the recent controversy.

Miller’s legal claim, coming after a long career where she oversaw the DA’s gang reduction efforts, ricocheted around Orange County legal circles Tuesday evening.

In her claim, she says she quit after months of harassment from Spitzer and Nelson.

“This [hostile work] environment was created in retaliation for Miller’s refusal to adopt race-based practices, her refusal to accept race-based attorney assignments and her refusal to remain silent when race was offered as justification for Spitzer’s decision-making process,” states Miller’s claim.

She goes on to say the hostility directed at her also was “in retaliation for, and in order to disable Miller from, protecting her females subordinates who had properly and painfully reported sexual misconduct by a male superior, Gary Logalbo, who was Spitzer’s Best Man at his wedding.”

“Miller was punished for refusing to allow Spitzer to lionize the predator, gas-light, and further savage the reputation of the victims,” her claim states.

A county-commissioned HR investigation confirmed that LoGalbo sexually harassed multiple female employees at the DA’s office.

When Miller came forward with reports that her subordinates were being harassed by LoGalbo, Nelson went so far as to defend the harasser and demean one of his victims, according to her claim.

“In December of 2020, Miller reported to Nelson that Gary LoGalbo had sexually harassed another OCDA female employee. Nelson defended LoGalbo and referred to the female victim as a ‘chicken; for not coming forward earlier,” Miller wrote in her claim.

Miller says she faced retaliation for reporting another victim of LoGalbo’s in February of last year.

“Later that same day, in an Executive Meeting, in retaliation for her protected activity, Nelson presented a plan to significantly diminish Miller’s material responsibilities and effectiveness,” her claim states, including “taking away many of the specialty units Miller supervised.”

Two months later, in April 2021, Spitzer outed Miller as a witness to the harassment when he distributed a previously confidential investigation report to the entire DA’s office, according to her claim.

Spitzer then disparaged Miller in front of her subordinantes by telling her to “just shut up” when she tried to explain things, and later told a subordinate “that he was mad because of what Miller stated in the LoGalbo report,” according to Miller’s claim.

The harassment from Spitzer and Nelson continued through the year, Miller alleges, including cutting her out of discussions and threatening to take away her involvement in promoting staff.

“In retaliation for Miller’s protected activity, Spitzer and Nelson would repeatedly belittle and humiliate Miller in Executive Meetings.

According to her claim, some of the retaliatory comments made towards Miller include, but are not limited to: ‘Be quiet,’ ‘Why are you talking,’ ‘I am not asking for your feedback,’ ‘I don’t need an opinion from you. Shut up and listen.’ ”

Miller is seeking over $10,000 in her legal claim against Spitzer, which is a precursor to a potential lawsuit.

Representing her in the case are police officer-turned-employment attorney Bijan Darvish and John Barnett, who represented the police officers acquitted in the Rodney King and Kelly Thomas beatings.

Miller, who worked at the DA’s office for 25 years, was the office’s only female senior assistant DA during the year and a half leading up to her leaving in January, according to her claim.

Nick Gerda covers county government for Voice of OC. You can contact him at ngerda@voiceofoc.org.

sited https://voiceofoc.org/2022/02/high-ranking-oc-prosecutor-quits-says-da-spitzer-jeopardized-mass-shooting-prosecution/