Los Angeles County District Attorneys – Crooks and reformers – Part 2

November 9, 5:07 AMLA History ExaminerCharles Nichols

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Robert Philibosian D.A. (1981-1984)

Evelle Younger(1964-1971) is the odd ball out of District Attorneys.  His biggest mistake was after he left office as Attorney General.  He voted to appoint Rose Bird as Chief Justice of the California Supreme Court which was the worst and pretty much the last of a career long series of misjudgments and mishandlings.  Supreme court justices are appointed in California but their appointment must be affirmed once every seven years by the voters.  The voters got their first chance in 1986 and she was kicked out by a better than two to one margin (67/33).  This was the first time in the history of the state that the voters had removed a Supreme Court justice, let alone the Chief Justice.  While he was Attorney General he committed one blunder after another.  He agreed to a new trial for a man convicted of murdering two little girls because his defense attorney was incompetent.  This in itself was admirable.  It is rare that a prosecutor agrees to a new trial even when he knows the defendant is innocent.  Younger believed that he was guilty but thought justice was better served if his guilt was proven beyond a reasonable doubt.  Unfortunately, when a local TV newsman complained about the decision, Younger tried to get him fired by threatening to lodge a complaint with the FCC; potentially threatening the station owners and their license as well.  Further compounding Younger’s error was he granted the retrial based on a report that the defendant’s attorney was drunk during the trial.  Younger never investigated the allegation, he accepted it as fact.

Joseph P. Busch Jr. (1971-1975) – Got the job because he was the last choice of the County Supervisors, the first choice candidates either didn’t want it or the Supervisors couldn’t muster a majority for a single candidate.  Busch had a reputation for being well liked but a lax DA unwilling to discipline the drunks in his department, possibly because he too was a drunk.  He never made it through his first term.  He died of a heart attack at age 49.

John Van de Kamp (1975-1981) – It is said that you can tell more about a man by the nature of his enemies than you can by his friends.  At first glance you would call Van de Kamp great merely because he incurred the wrath of the Police Public Employee Unions: The Los Angeles Police Protective League (6,000 members), the Association for Los Angeles Deputy Sheriffs (4,000 members), Professional Peace Officers Association (2,900 members), the Peace Officers Research Association of California, Alhambra Police Officers Association, Arcadia Police Relief Association, Azusa Police Officers Association, Baldwin Park Public Safety Employees Association, Claremont Police Officers Association, Gardena Police Benefit Association, Pasadena Police Officers Association, and Whittier Police Officers Association.

However, it doesn’t take much for these types to overreact.  The reason?  In the wake of the Eula Love shooting, which even former Police Chief Gates is reported to have said was a “bad shooting,” Van de Kamp tried to send out an investigator and a Deputy DA to the scene of every police shooting.  Then, as now, the police conduct the investigation whenever a police officer shoots someone and, as you guessed it, the results of the investigation never find that the shooting was unlawful (even when the defendant is unarmed and shot in the back).

The police did not cooperate with the two members of the DA’s office and by Van De Kamp’s own account obstructed justice.  Instead of arresting and prosecuting them, he just went through the motions.

Robert Philibosian (1981-1984) was not a reformer.  He was appointed by the County Supervisors to replace John Van de Kamp who had been elected Attorney General.  As I observed in an earlier article, paraphrasing A. E. van Vogt, people generally have the time of government they want.  California has more than its share of barking mad, raving lunatics.  Couple that with the fact that by definition, half the people have an I.Q. of 100 or less and it goes a long way to explaining why the state is known by the rest of the nation as “The land of fruits and nuts.”  It also explains the former District Attorney.

In 1983, Judy Johnson reported to police that her young son had been sodomized by her husband.  Women often throw around this allegation in divorce proceedings trying to get an even larger settlement than the absurdly large lion’s share they already get so the police should have been a little more skeptical considering that she was a paranoid schizophrenic and went on to tell them that her son had also been sodomized by aliens from outer space as well as a prominent school board member and the family who ran the McMartin pre-school in Hermosa Beach.

Since space aliens were out of their jurisdiction and the prominent school board member was a little too prominent, the police went after the McMartin’s.  Johnson further claimed that satanic rituals and molestations were conducted on the school grounds both inside and outside of the school building.  The McMartin preschool was on a narrow lot which faced a street which paralleled the beach at the front and an alley way at the rear.  The fence in front was about 3 and a half feet high which allowed anyone of normal height to look into the schoolyard as they passed by on this heavily traveled pedestrian walkway.   The fence in back was chain link and presented no obstruction to viewing the school ground as well.  The actual school house itself was a single story bungalow with large windows on two sides which gave a clear view to the entire classroom to pedestrians passing by on the sidewalk or driving by on the 25 mph roadway.

Instead of treating the case for what it was, the ranting of an insane woman, the police sent out a form letter to around 200 parents stating that their children may have been molested at the McMartin preschool and to keep the matter confidential.

Right.  The media took the story and ran with it.  More than that the reporter for ABC was involved romantically with the social worker “interviewing” the children.  Philibosian, facing a tough election ahead of him decided to prosecute and the rest is history.  He lost the election and the McMartin family, although acquitted, had lost everything.  The son who had worked for the preschool, but not at the time the alleged abuse had occurred, had spent five years in jail by the time the trial was over.

Ira Reiner (1984-1992) defeated Philibosian and was elected District Attorney.  Instead of dropping the McMartin case he pursued it and deserves more of the blame than Philibosian, which doesn’t mean that Philibosian is any less guilty; Ira Reiner had from his election to the McMartin’s acquittal in 1990 to say that the charges were an obscene miscarriage of justice.  Instead, he did everything in his power, including perjured witnesses to convict the McMartins.

Gil Garcetti (1992-2000) could have convicted both Philibosian and Ira Reiner for prosecutorial misconduct but Garcetti was Ira Reiner’s former Chief Deputy District Attorney.  Got the picture?  Enough said.

Steve Cooley (2000 – present) – I will have plenty to say about him in future articles.  None of it good.

Over nine million people live in Los Angeles County.  I’ve travelled enough outside of the United States to understand why more than a third of its residents are from another country, the world is a pretty bad place that makes even LA look good by comparison.

Although, it doesn’t explain why the other two thirds of the residents are here.