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(Ed. Note: I’m really burying the lede on this one; be sure to read the part of this piece in an orange font — plus the last section on an easily missed big aspect of Murdock’s pitch, and what it all means for this year’s election season. – GAD)
1. The OC District Attorney’s Race is Heating Up!
I’m going to enjoy watching the Orange County District Attorney’s race this year a lot more than I did four years ago, when I ran as a sort of human ice-breaker to chip away the mystique of what was then the almost two-decades unchallenged Trump-like incompetent incumbent Tony Rackauckas.
Watching the chaotic Todd Spitzer take shots at Racky — I refuse to refer to him as “T-Rack” like he’s some rap star, though I would consider “Li’l Clusterrack” — will have its moments, but it seems like for the most part it will be about general chest-pounding about who can be harsher on Latino youth and the homeless, which is much less satisfying. Besides, I know too many Republicans whose eyes bug out when I say that if push came to shove I’d vote for the Spitzoid over Li’l Racky — just to clear the muck out of the stable and let it fill up with a different scented and less ossified muck — to feel confident that he would win a one-on-one contest in the runoff, and that takes some of the fun out of it. But I am really going to enjoy watching the third candidate, Democrat Brett Murdock, run the sort of campaign that I would have liked to run four years ago, given the money (and added experience and abaence of attacks from my own party.) Murdock came out with his first email blast at Racky today — and it is very satisfying indeed. The boldface emphasis is mine:
The current District Attorney has done it again.
In 4 years Oscar Moriel, an admitted gangster and 6 time murderer, will once again be walking the streets of Orange County as part of a deal made by the District Attorney’s office. Failure to prosecute such a heinous criminal threatens our community and only emboldens gang violence. You can learn more about this case here.
The current DA has been in office for almost 20 years. Mistake after mistake after mistake has proven that he is no longer competent to keep Orange County safe. We need a stronger and more consistent approach regarding gang violence. As District Attorney, I will set a zero-tolerance policy toward gang violence in addition to working with community leaders in their efforts to provide alternative paths for at-risk youth.
We can win this! I just need a little bit of help.
… [I’m removing Murdock’s fundraising pitch, as this is journalism and not a campaign contribution; his website, if you’re interested. is http://brettmurdock.com. I’m not even making that a live link!]
That link, unsurprisingly, is to a Scott Moxley story in the Weekly entitled “Orange County DA Makes Sweetheart Deal Returning Serial Killer to the Streets,” about the OCDA’s office rewarding serial murderer Moriel for “betraying his Delhi criminal street gang as well as the Mexican Mafia, and turning into a paid confidential jailhouse informant who aided federal and state law-enforcement officials in winning convictions against mob bosses.”
We’ll get back to Murdock’s pitch soon, but it’s time for a brief aside having nothing to do with Murdock and everything to do with how stupid Racky’s top aide Susan Kang Schroeder’s PR sense is:
2. Why Racky Should Not Be Crowing Over Moriel’s Plea Deal
The DA’s office is loudly congratulating itself on obtaining Moriel’s assistance — and to some extent, who can blame them? I’m no fan of violent street gangs or of the Mexican Mafia, and we should all recognize that jailhouse informants DO have a legitimate role to play in prosecutions, as occurs in jurisdictions across the nation and beyond.
HERE ARE THE DOTS THAT RACKY’S OFFICE HOPES THAT YOU WILL NOT CONNECT — DOTS THAT OJB IS HAPPY TO CONNECT FOR YOU!
As readers probably know, the DA’s office has been involved in a gigantic scandal over its improper use of jailhouse snitches, leading among other things to dismissal of the death penalty as a sentencing option for spree killer Scott Dekraai. This was uncovered only through the extraordinary work of Public Defender Scott Sanders and his department, a degree of inspiration and effort that is not often present– perhaps including, for all I know, these very same prosecutions against the Mexican Mafia et al.
Now: unless, like the OCDA’s office, you want to pretend that the D.A.’s snitch scandal simply didn’t exist, this leaves one of two possibilities:
Possibility #1: The DA’s Office took special care NOT to take the sort of liberties with Moriel’s employment as a snitch in the Delhi and Mexican Mafia cases that led to its blowing the Dekraii case.
Possibility #2: The DA’s Office took NO special care against taking the sorts of liberties with Moriel’s employment as a snitch in the Delhi and Mexican Mafia cases that led to its blowing the Dekraii case — and it WAS JUST LUCKY that the same constitutional errors didn’t occur in those cases — OR it was just lucky that the opposing counsel wasn’t as good as finding and exploiting those errors as was Scott Sanders.
Either way, for the OCDA’s office to be celebrating the success of its use of a snitch — when for all we know the same errors that saved Scott Dekraii from execution might have been used to prevent or reverse critical federal cases against drug cartels — is flabbergasting stupidity. It’s like a doctor celebrating the success of a successful brain surgery done in an unlicensed and unclean hospital where several other of the doctor’s patients died of sepsis. The difference is that using a snitch to get information — constitutionally, unless you are an idiot or a psychopath — is not brain surgery. It’s a standard procedure, like a tracheotomy, that the public is entitled to expect that a professional will not screw up by, say, drilling an air hole to the throat from the back through the spine.
You don’t get credit just because THIS ONE CASE didn’t turn into a disaster thanks to your shoddy procedures!
Now, back to Murdock’s use of Moxley’s article:
3. Moxley’s Reminder: Racky Has Badly Screwed Up Plea Deals Before
Here’s the part of Moxley’s story, from the end, that I want to highlight, though (and, again, the highlighting is mine):
What could go wrong?
Rackauckas’ office, which hails itself as a “law and order” operation and amazingly held a self-congratulatory post-sentencing press conference with DA media flack and wannabe future DA Susan Kang Schroeder, should know.
It rewarded Daniel Escelara, another Mexican Mafia-tied killer turned government snitch in the 1980s. Despite his own violent crimes, Escelara didn’t spend even one day in prison. He was put back into the community, where his mayhem resumed with a robbery and a murder.
Perhaps the Escelara disaster is one reason Rackauckas stalled the Moriel sweetheart deal more than 70 times and then announced the pact on the Friday launching a Christmas weekend.
Note that this criticism of Racky is just the cherry on the top of the sundae. Even if the OCDA’s office can defend itself in Escalera’s case, which may have been bad luck — although the postponements and burying of the story suggests that they were concerned it was otherwise — it doesn’t mean that the office should be crowing about the Moriel case. Sometimes you get unlucky, sometimes you get lucky. If you do you job correctly, you have less NEED to get lucky.
4. What Impresses Me Most About Murdock’s Attack
This is exactly the sort of thing that Rackauckas should be attacked over — one item on a long list — and it’s not clear to me that it’s the sort of thing on which Spitzer will attack him. (Maybe he has done so in print, and if so I’ll amend this paragraph accordingly.) But what impresses me about Murdock’s email blast isn’t as much its content as one other fact I’ve withheld until now:
Moxley’s story just came out on DECEMBER 22, 2017!
This was not, in other words, ammunition that had been stored somewhere in the back of Murdock’s armory. This just happened! And Murdock was on it, quickly and ferociously.
Today is one of the first days since then that one could put out a blast email and expect it to get noticed. This suggests to me that not only will Murdock be dogging Rackauckas — and probably reading the Weekly closely in doing so; I hope he checks out the archives as well — but that he’ll be able and willing to put out some very rapid response. Over the next ten months, that is exactly what is needed to defeat Rackauckas. (Defeating Spitzer as well — well, that’s a topic for a different day. But again, to me it’s priority #2.)
Spitzer — if he’s willing to challenge jailhouse snitchery user in reportedly successful prosecutions — would be wise to do the same. Seeing Racky take hard fire over his abysmal record from two directions — that would be a recipe for a great year of political coverage!
[Disclaimer: my daughter’s political compliance firm has done work for Murdock in the past; I don’t know whether it is doing so this year or whether she’s personally involved in that work, if so. Whether it is or not would not change this story or my opinion on this race. I doubt that even my switching parties (or Murdock doing so) would affect it. Bad government is bad, and getting rid of bad government is good, period.]
I wish I could be more enthusiastic about this guy. His main pledge here is he’s gonna be MORE TOUGH on “gang violence” than Rackauckas has been (or Spitzer would be?) And this, right after Jesus Aguirre finally gets his life sentence commuted? What would Brett have done differently there, gone for the death penalty?
I’m waiting for a DA candidate who promises to go after POLITICAL CORRUPTION, as well as bad cops. I wonder if there will be one with that kind of guts.
I wish you could too.
There’s nothing intrinsically wrong about being “tough on gang violence.” Gang violence — like police brutality and political corruption — is bad. However, like other bad things, there can be differences in how one approaches it. One can be tough on gang violence without being unfair or abusive — and without taking steps to inflame it further. Going for the death penalty, for example, is not being tough on gang violence because it’s needlessly inflammatory, more expensive, and everyone knows that it’s probably not going to happen anyway.
I don’t think that there’s any doubt that Murdock would be more likely to go after corruption than Racky, given the stands he’s taken against pay-for-play in Brea. Will he be perfect? I’m sure he won’t — the situation doesn’t allow for perfection. (The harder one pushes, the harder is the pushback. One has to be a tactical about fighting corruption rather than just cutting off heads — because there are many ways that one can be foiled, such as Supes using the budgetary wrench.)
As for bad cops — again, I don’t expect he’d be perfect by your standards — nor would I, because I think that sometimes cops do end up killing people without it being criminal, whereas for some activists it’s a given that if someone dies due to a cop’s action it’s always, ipso facto, a crime. (And seriously — we all know how infrequently juries find cops guilty, so unless the DA also gets to be a hanging judge there’s only so much he can do.) But I think that he would not be intent on making things worse and would make it much easier to make things better — by, among other things, ensuring strong protection for confidential whistleblowing from those within agencies and ensuring that his people can and will do FAIR investigations of what has happened.
You seriously think that that that wouldn’t be enough to vote for over Racky (and, unless he’s going to shock us all by veering left, Spitzer)? If so, I think that your demanding total fealty is part of the problem with achieving reform.
“There’s nothing intrinsically wrong about being “tough on gang violence.””
It’s just that’s all we’ve heard from him so far. That coulda come from either of his opponents.
“I wonder if there will be one with that kind of guts.”
I don’t.
I think I may vote for Tony Racetrack. He’s 75 – 16 years older than Spitzer and can’t live forever. Spitzer could be DA for another 20 years. Plus he’s only got 3 years left before he’s termed out as a Supervisor. His vaudeville show could finally be over in 2020.
You mean, you don’t want a DA who feels he would have been justified using deadly force against a Jesus freak who glanced at a knife?
We don’t even know if Bible Boy looked at the knife at all. So much of that fiasco was spun by Spitzer after the fact.
But here’s the thing: Spitzer would be just as bad as Tony Racetrack when it comes to exonerating bad cops, shootings, etc. Plus he would be an administrative disaster for the DAs office which has several hundred employees. And when it comes to megalomanaical grandstanding nobody can touch Spitzer. I really fear the prosecutions done for PR or even political value. It’s bad enough already.
As DA Spitzer could be around for another two decades – there would be no other political office to shoot for.
Roger all that.
Nah. First of all, until you’re President, there’s ALWAYS another office to shoot for.
That Spitzer would be an administrative disaster — and that he’d step on a lot of powerful toes (in search of glory … and, to be fair, justice as well) — are reasons that I’m not worried about his being around for 20 years. If anyone but Racky wins, a current Racky-raised Judge on the OC Superior Court will run. (I don’t have anyone in mind, but there’s no shortage of possibilities.) We’re looking for four years of reform — or at least disruption of the ossified current system — year. If Murdock wins and performs well, maybe he gets another term in office. If Spitzer wins, the times that he actually does do well — by going after the sort of corruption that we hate and that makes headlines — are what will doom him. At least he’s fire shotgun blasts across the political spectrum than rifle shots aimed at reformers.
Spitzer has no place to go in California that wouldn’t be a step down and would also incur term limits.
The problem isn’t that he’d step on powerful toes in search of glory. He’d stomp on a whole bunch of little toes. If you believe there is any scintilla of a sense of justice in the man you will be sorely disappointed. It’s all talk. On the BoS Spitzer’s been knee-deep in ethical messes of his own creation.
The description of Spitzer with a shotgun conjures up unfortunate mental images.
Congress has no term limits. (Its electorate, for him, is in California.) And at some point he gets old enough to ride the AG to Governor train, which takes 16 years to complete. Plus, he’s not that young to start with. I don’t think that “lack of term limits” is high on his list. I always thought that part of the rap on him is that he’s angling to become President, right? (That also has term limits)
I believe that I’ve seen Spitzer have actual human ethical reactions to things (beyond opposition to crime.). I can’t say that of Rackauckas.
Congress isn’t a step up for a sitting DA in Orange County and requires at least the pantomime of elections every two years. Plus it’s a pay decrease and loss of potential pension.
Spitzer will never get elected AG, let alone Governor in California. DA is his last stop and it’s incumbent upon any reasonable person to make sure it doesn’t happen.
Being “reasonable,” then, you’ll be supporting Murdock in the primary.
*Always another Pretender to the Throne? Chairman Vern, come on now – DZ is actually right on this one…….you have no clue what could happen in 20 years! Hey, maybe Sloppy Steve or Joe Arpaio will come down and run…….
Do not give Joe Arpaio any ideas, please.