Name of D.A. Office Game: ‘Family Feud’

The Los Angeles County district attorney’s office is a big dysfunctional family.

That’s certainly what it seems like now that Deputy Dist. Atty. David Conn has been denied a promotion after scoring the office’s biggest win of the year in the Menendez case.

Get too big and Pop cuts you down.

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The family’s dirty linen was on clear display Tuesday night, when the criminal law section of the Century City Bar Assn. honored Conn as prosecutor of the year at a Century Plaza dinner.

Conn’s boss, Dist. Atty. Gil Garcetti, who recently decided to pass over his now-hot subordinate for promotion to a coveted section head position, was nowhere to be seen.

But Garcetti’s challenger in the November election, Deputy Dist. Atty. John Lynch, was Conn’s guest, seated next to him. “John is a good man and I am having problems with the office and I thought it would be enjoyable to spend a little time with him,� Conn said. He said he wasn’t taking sides “at this time.� But in the political business, appearances are everything.

In accepting the award, Conn delivered an uninhibited attack on his boss.

Garcetti’s aides, he said, had told him that “managers and the trial lawyers have different kinds of thought processes and you have to learn the manager’s approach. . . . Maybe they need a manager who still remembers a trial lawyer’s approach. That may help explain why the district attorney’s office doesn’t win the big ones.�

Listening to the speech, watching the scene, I wondered about an office where one subordinate attacks his boss so publicly and another runs against him. I talked to some of the lawyers at the dinner about it.

As is the case with a family, the causes of the strife can jump back generations.

Retired State Supreme Court Justice Armand Arabian dates the discord back to 1972, when Vince Bugliosi, the Manson case winner, almost defeated his boss, Dist. Atty. Joe Busch, in one of the most bitter elections in county history. Since then, he said, sitting D.A.s have feared creating a serious challenger from the ranks of the deputies. “The D.A.s always hear footsteps behind them when they run to catch a pass,� Arabian said.

The Bugliosi experience shattered office complacency. Young deputies had backed him, jump-starting his campaign. Popular Dist. Atty. John Van de Kamp escaped such challenges, but rebellious young deputy D.A.s backed then-City Atty. Ira Reiner when he defeated Dist. Atty. Bob Philibosian.

Soon, intra-office combat had become a way of life, made worse by tight county budgets that limited pay raises and promotions.

Reiner was soon confronted by a potential challenger, the handsome and wealthy Garcetti, who was a favorite with many reporters. Garcetti was exiled to the Torrance office, where he plotted his successful campaign against Reiner four years ago. Rebellious deputies supported him.

Increased media scrutiny intensified the process, and the D.A. reacted to it. Reporters, who in past generations were completely supportive of law enforcement, became more objective, more critical.

Any mistake was covered intensively. The powerful medium of television magnified every move. TV burned the losses into public consciousness.

This was accompanied by the increased complexity of the criminal law.

“Three strikes,� new penalties, new offenses filled the lawbooks. Defense attorney Harland Braun said the criminal lawbooks were comparatively thin when he started practicing a quarter of a century ago. Now they are heavy with changes and court interpretations.

It became harder for the D.A. to win the big cases, facing strong defenses.

Finally, society changed. The legal world used to be a tight club. Prosecutors and defense attorneys would drink together after courtroom battles. “The system was less adversarial, more genteel than it is now,� said attorney Richard D. Hirsch, who was given the lawyer of the year award at the banquet.

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Genteel will not describe the current campaign for district attorney. Just as in the past, the office is split between Garcetti loyalists and the Lynch crew. Whoever wins the election, Garcetti or Lynch, will have to pull the place together.

Whatever his reasons for not promoting Conn, the timing of Garcetti’s decision won’t help the process.

Sandra Buttitta, chief deputy district attorney, said Conn was denied promotion because “we were looking for people who have the ability to function in management positions. Gil is his biggest supporter in the whole office. But when we sat down and thought about the ability to manage, his managers who had been supervising David did not think he was the best manager.�

This sounds like some cold fish from Corporate Human Relations commenting on a private personnel move--a management decision with no repercussions beyond the Criminal Courts Building.

But the D.A.’s office is a public agency. Confidence in it has been weakened by the big losses. The most famous losers, the chief prosecutors in the O.J. Simpson trial, were awarded bonuses. Two of them, Marcia Clark and Chris Darden, are prospering with big book advances and lecture fees.

The big winner, on the other hand, gets the back of the hand, and maybe even exile to a distant office.

It makes you wonder whether this family can be saved.