I missed this story last week – but it is a doozy. Supervisor John Moorlach’s Chief of Staff, Mario Mainero, challenged O.C. District Attorney Tony Rackauckas on the ridiculous cost of prosecuting death penalty cases, and T-Rack couldn’t handle the questions, according to the Orange Punch Blog.
Here is an excerpt from the Orange Punch:
“John Moorlach’s Chief of Staff Mario Mainero became something of a folk hero (among staffers, anyway) for raising the obvious issue of how the DA currently spends money. In particular, Mainero mentioned the death penalty. The DA — as part of his tough-on-crime image — often seeks the death penalty, and Mainero pointed out that this costs a bundle, maybe a million bucks or more a year. The standards for such cases are much higher, Mainero reportedly explained, and this is costly. No one ever gets executed in California, and the DA eventually drops about 80 percent of the death penalty cases, turning them into life-in-prison cases. Mainero, a death-penalty opponent, focused solely on the cost issues.”
It took old T-Rack a week to reply, but he finally did, in a letter, according to the Total Buzz blog. Here’s an excerpt:
“While I am fully aware of the need for tight budgets in times of economic distress, I do not believe that it is proper for a member of the Board or his staff to use budget constraints to attempt to dictate when justice will be pursued and when it will not,” Rackauckas wrote.
What a pompous ass T-Rack is! As Moorlach pointed out in the Total Buzz blog, why circulate a letter when he could have just called Moorlach?
The kicker to all of this is that Moorlach and T-Rack are both pro death penalty. But Mainero isn’t. Good for him! Finally a Supervisorial staffer we can be proud of. And he raised a good point – why is T-Rack blowing so much tax money on these Quixotic cases? What kind of conservative would do that?
Because it look goo come election time. One can say I sentenced xx Murders etc to the death penality.
I happen to support the death penality in certain cases, but knowing how much these case cost, some common sense is needed.
I read this article and nobody questioned the victims families to see if cost is an issue. Moorlach only seems to care about $$$.
Merio(as he likes to be called)is a jerk who is hated by all staff and all who have met him.
Jim,
I oppose all instances of the death penalty. It is a barbaric practice. Surely we are better than that?
At least we are both consistant, I support choice and the death penality in limited instances. You oppose both.
Jim,
I also went pro choice a couple years ago. I was endorsed by Planned Parenthood last year in my council race.
So we are on the same page, for the most part!
Jim and Art,
Against the death penalty for mad dog murdering scum, And for the death penalty for innocent unborn children in the womb.
Yes I know it is all about “choice”.
But to the post? The accounting rules that they use makes it look like they spend more money of death penalty cases. But the in reality they just spend, spend, spend. Just cut the DA’s budget and save.
Re Ongoing blockage of Death Penalty by liberals, and your defamation of DA Rackauckas: (Let’s debate this issue!)
I’ll testify at scheduled June 30 hearing on the issue of the use of lethal injection in
CA executions that have been subject to de facto blockage over the years.
I’ll represent my ACRU in support of the humane use of lethal injection which I actively supported in the mid 80’s when it was first introduced. I regarded it then and today as humane “judicial euthanasia” — i.e. painless execution of those convicted of murderous crimes and sentenced to death. Californians have supported capital punishment over the years, and over those years numerous attempts to declare it “cruel and
Will present supportive arguments for the use of lethal injection — ruled in 2006 as “cruel and unusual” by (anti-death penalty) Dist. Judge Jeremy Fogel. ACRU and the great majority of Americans support capital punishment. However, the ACLU and other anti-capital punishment groups (with “misplaced compassion”) have persisted in their anti CP efforts. Though they’ve failed to abolish CP here and nationally, they have succeeded in its de-facto blockage via instituting outrageously frivolous law suits often pursued to the US Supreme Court. Proof: 655 on (farcical) “death row” today, though CA has had but 13 executions since its reinstatement in 1976! That’s not even “tokenism”!
Rose Bird Recall: Rose Eliz. Bird was appointed Chief Justice of the CA Supreme Court by anti- death penalty Gov. Jerry Brown in 1977. By 1981 this former federal defense attorney (ACLU supporter) had ruled against capital punishment in 61 of 61 cases. Along with two others (now on the ACRU board) I assisted Orange County prosecutor Tony Rackauckas in organizing “Californian’s For A Responsible Supreme Court”, which became the successful judicial “Bird Recall” effort that ultimately succeeded in ousting her and two other justices from that Court. It is our opinion that Judge Fogel (like ousted justices Bird, Reynoso and Grodin) is legislating from the bench” to continue the ongoing blockage of our California death penalty. His absurd ruling against the execution of 1981 rape-murderer M. Morales was nothing less than an outrage. It followed an equally outrageous, frivolous, defense filing intended to outlaw lethal injection as “cruel and unusual”. Again, its nothing more than a highly questionable ongoing
judicial effort to stall implementation of capital punishment. Judge Fogel is flouting CA law and ignoring the will of Californians, and perhaps should be dealt with as we did the abolitionist Bird Court of prior years.
Ref my 1983 article:
(“It’s high time to end abuses of justice by the Bird Court”, O.C. Register, 10/30/83)
Dr. Howard Garber
PO Box 17099
Anaheim, CA 92817
(714) 282-VOTE
Wow, It is nice to find a blog that is addressing this issue. First of all I would like to thank Chief of Staff Mainero for having the balls to come out against Tony R’s “Death Penalty Spending”. I like to also thank Art Pedroza for speaking out.
My name is C. J. Ford Jr. a licensed private investigator. Last year I spoke and addressed the Orange County Board of Supervisors regarding Tony R’s attempts to control DNA in Orange County by his attempts to shanghai the DNA lab from the Sheriff Department. I pointed out that Tony R likes to convict people who’s DNA matched in crimes, but would not exonerate people who’s DNA did not match DNA found at the Crime Scene. The case that I presented was “The State of California vs Kenneth Clair. Tony R will spend any money necessary to keep an innocence man on death row because he would rather see a person executed, spend enormous amounts of tax payers money, then get off his narcissistic trip that his office was wrong in their conviction of Clair. My investigation of the DA’s office forced the DA to publicly come out and admit that they were secretly testing DNA evidence in the Clair case and they knew that the results did not match Clair. However, until I threaten to expose this, they came clean in an article in the Orange County Register January 5, 2007: http://www.ocregister.com/news/clair-dna-rodgers-1954497-prosecutors-evidence (Please read the comments)
Since then the DA has run the DNA and they know who it belongs to, however, they still are keeping results secret as they did before from the defense.
Now for those that are worried about cost. Mr. Clair can file up to $100.00 per day for being wrongfully convicted. Clair has been on Death Row in San Quentin since 1985 for a murder that they know he did not commit. Since I exposed them in that article on January 5, 2008, Mr. Clair is entitled to an additional $36,000.00. Do the math. You have $100.00 per day from early 1985 until now at $100.00 per day. All of this to hide a supercilious case that the DA’ s knows that they built around a homeless black man.
I recommended to the Orange County Board of Supervisors that we could still be tough on crime, but be fair on crime by eliminating unnecessary and costly expenses that the DA uses to cover up their bad convictions. I recommended to the Board of Supervisors in open session and also met with 4 of the supervisors privately that they should structure the DA’s office more like Craig Watkins office who is the DA in Dallas County. Watkins is hard on Prosecutorial Misconduct in his office and is saving the taxpayers money by exonerating inmates by DNA- not using the system to prolong exoneration like Tony R. Watkins realizes that he can exonerate inmates using DNA and actually prosecute the real perpetrators instead of Tony R’s method of protecting the real killers DNA results to preserve the fact that his office convicted the wrong person. Refer to the following link to see how a real DA handles DNA results. This was address by Larry King on Craig Watkins:
http://larrykinglive.blogs.cnn.com/2009/05/27/lkl-web-exclusive-dna-proves-they-were-innocent/#comment-165668
Please read comments.
Tony R. has been running from me since 2005. He will not meet with me. I have tried to set several appointments with him. Since then I have found missing finger prints that the DA’s office tried to hide, All the crime scene evidence that the DA said was destroyed for 15 years to the defenses, I found that evidence and exposed that lie. I uncovered and exposed the fact that the DA secretly tested DNA at the crime scene and Clair’s DNA did not match that DNA. Now I am working on uncovering and exposing if necessary the fact that the DA has matched the DNA at the crime scene and knows who committed the murder. I have already discovered damaging evidence of blatant prosecutorial misconduct from document tampering, destruction on physical evidence, and other recent occurrences to keep this charade intact.
Tony R. If you can not do the right thing on your own, then the only thing that I can do is expose what is being done. I have pursued this case since 2005 and if your office thinks that I will be frustrated like you have been frustrating Mr. Clair’s defense attorney’s you are mistaken. If you think that the fact that you can keep spending tax payers money hoping you will exhaust Mr. Clair’s financial means and his time will run out and he is executed, you are mistaken. Unlike you, I am working on this pro-bona and doing this because it is the RIGHT thing to do. So you can avoid me and this issue, but I can assure you it will not go away until “Justice” and the things that you told the people that elected you prevails.
You have to make right decisions for the people of this county, even if these decisions reverse bad deaccession that your office has made. You can not keep using taxpayers money to protect bad decisions and to prolong due process and justice.
http://www.cjfordpi.com
cjfordpi@mac.com
C. J. Ford Jr,
Welcome and thank you for taking the time to post at the Orange Juice blog. Your story and comments are compelling. It is amazing that you cannot get an audience with the DA’s office and even more amazing that that office would not work a little more diligently to get you the answers that you need. Your client may be innocent and his due process has been thwarted. Good for you for pursuing this case- and pro bono, at that!- to see to it that justice can be accomplished.
Please keep us updated. I wish you luck in resolving this case.
Who is addressing the serious allegations raised by C.J. Ford? How can the DA remain silent regarding DNA evidence? What is Attorney General Brown doing about prosecutorial misconduct? Why is Kenneth Claire still in prison?
I, too, will testify in Sacramento on June 30th on the issue of lethal injection as the form of execution here in California. It is absolutely ludicrous that the opponents of capital punishment will resort to farcical distortions in order to achieve their goal of eliminating the death penalty IN ALL CIRCUMSTANCES. Anyone who has been anesthetized for a major surgery or a simple root canal knows that the idea of lethal injection causing “pain and suffering” or “cruel and unusual punishment” is simply another smokescreen by these bleeding heart permissive liberals to once and for all abolish capital punishment.
We use a similar process to put animals to sleep.
The bottom line here is that we have unlimited patience when dealing with this, the most horrible of all criminals – murderers. Just like we have unlimited patience with the ridiculous never-ending appeals process – which is exactly why capital cases might cost more than a life sentence. We need to end this defacto moratorium in death penalty cases; limit the appeals process to something reasonable – LIKE THE ISSUES OF GUILT OR INNOCENSE, rather than procedural technicalities; and begin to execute these violent, never-to-be-trusted-again killers on a regular basis. Only then will we restore safe streets and neighborhoods.
All recent polls on capital punishment – including the liberal Washington Post – show that both Democrats and Republicans support the death penalty in large numbers. It’s the tiny handful of those with misplaced compassion that are thwarting its implementation.
There are a number of polls available that suggest that America’s dealth penalty advocates are declining. See http://www.deathpenaltyinfo.org/public-opinion-about-death-penalty for starters. As for the better method by which to destroy life I am reminded of the guillotine invention that was meant to be an egalitarian killing method in 18th century France. Today, France, as well as the European Union in general, has abolished the death penalty. Unfortunately, many countries with vestiges of barbarism continue to use it.
It is a shame that so much money, “that the state claims to not have”, spends countless funds on innocent prisoners such as Kenneth Clair!! But in turn allow sexual predators back on the streets only to commit the same crimes to children as well as adults. The system can be so backwards! But it is okay because all who wrongfully accuse the innocent have to be judged as well!! Shame on you, you never know when your judgement day will come!!