Eye - A systematic analysis of the two DA candidates

A systematic analysis of the two DA candidates dispels any uncertainty
Jim Fahey The Arcata Eye
May 30, 2006

The Eye’s editor recently wrote that he was unsure how to vote in our DA race. I understand his ambivalence. I was ambivalent before speaking with incumbent Paul Gallegos and challenger Worth Dikeman.

Having spoken with both at length, as well as the editor, the cops, a very liberal surgeon I intellectually respect as much as anyone and lots of others, I’m no longer ambivalent.

But instead of writing a long opinion piece, slamming one and praising the other, I’ll report what they told me and what I’ve learned. Then I’ll reveal whom I support, and why.

Let’s start with “Top 5” lists regarding why you should vote for each candidate.

Top 5 reasons to vote Dikeman

1. Gallegos got his law degree from a school not accredited by the American Bar Association, one whose graduates were not allowed to practice law in other states, even if they passed their bar exams. He did, however, pass California’s Bar. (His school has, after 36 years, been “provisionally accredited” as of 2006.) Dikeman got his J.D. from Hastings, U.C.S.F.’s prestigious law school. Many students at California’s accredited law schools feel that if they flunk out, they would rather give up on Law than go to an unaccredited school.

2. Dikeman is a dedicated, career-long prosecutor, like I’m a dedicated, career-long appellate defense attorney. He talks and thinks like a prosecutor, and could no more do my job than I could do his. Although a Democrat, he is a law enforcement servant.

3. If you see this as a lesser-of-two-evils race, Dikeman is nearly 60 and almost surely will never be more than our D.A., or, in his dotage, a trial judge. Gallegos, a much younger man who exudes the warmth, quick answers and smooth rhetoric of a politician, could go much higher.

4. If you want a tough-on-crime mentality in that office, it is abundantly clear Dikeman fits that description better than Gallegos, and not slightly.

5. Dikeman is supported by every, or virtually every, police officer in Humboldt County.

Top 5 reasons to vote Gallegos

1. Gallegos is not just about punishment. He believes in rehabilitation where possible, and that violent drug addicts should be imprisoned for violence, not addiction. He is “a prosecutor, not a persecutor.”

2. He withstood a withering, sleazy recall attempt which brought Humboldt County notoriety ? albeit because of Maxxam’s grotesque tactics, not because Dikeman entered the race.

3. He has impressive endorsements: A.G. Lockyer, Chesbro, Berg and the county’s Democratic headquarters. Then again, Bob Ornelas endorses him.

4. He is more telegenic, charismatic and spontaneously charming than Dikeman.

5. Dikeman is supported by every, or virtually every, police officer in Humboldt County.

Ha ha. The defense attorney got a good laugh at the expense of bad Humboldt cops ? and there are many.

But remember: There aren’t many bad cops on the Arcata P.D. And only an ignorant bigot thinks all cops are rotten, or that cops – while fighting the methamphetamine (a.k.a., “crank”) scourge, alcohol-related violence and accidents, sociopathic violence, robberies, domestic violence, home-invading narcotics addicts, etc. – deserve no consideration or support. Stay with me, folks in blue.

I asked the candidates about numerous matters. Here we go:

I. Medical marijuana

Both support California’s medical marijuana law, which protects prescribing doctors and patients. They agree state law, as expanded by our Supervisors, allows patients up to three pounds and all they can grow in a 100-square foot garden. Both agree Gallegos persuaded our Supervisors to expand – as they may – the amount allowed under state law. Gallegos says he “fought this battle for our county” and trusts doctors not to imperil their licenses by prescribing marijuana to recreational stoners. Dikeman promises to honor this policy.
EDGE: GALLEGOS.

II. Prosecution of violent police misconduct

Regarding recent alleged CHP goonery on the freeway, Dikeman has taken May off and is not sufficiently informed to comment.

Gallegos told me he “will look at everything that comes before [him]” and is “not looking to prosecute anyone” (his emphasis).
That answer came quickly and slickly, but it was a crock (my emphasis). His office pressured Katherine Zimmerman to plead out in the CHP’s battery-on-a-cop case against her. The CHP filed multiple charges, including at least one felony, then Gallegos’ office reduced them so all were misdemeanors. But they included battery on an officer ? a hell of a charge to have on your record. Thus, in the worst tradition of the ’60s, Zimmerman was given a robust beating, allegedly until unconscious, jailed for days, then charged for hurting a cop.

Fast-forward.
Now, while telling me he’s “not looking to prosecute anyone,” and telling both the Eye and me he wants to get the facts from both sides, Gallegos’ office coerces Zimmerman into this deal, and Gallegos says it’s “a fair disposition based on the facts.”
So, he wants to get the facts, but first, let’s coerce her into this deal and call it “a fair disposition based on the facts?” I call that an invulnerability to the emotion of shame.

Some slam Dikeman as an inveterate cop-lover, but how could he do worse than that doublespeak?
BIG EDGE: DIKEMAN.

III. Domestic violence

A subject dear to me. I’m known nationwide to battered women’s advocates, for my work on several California Supreme Court cases involving domestic violence (“DV”).

Both men acknowledged they have no experience prosecuting batterers. Dikeman said DV is “certainly” a serious problem and one deputy DA is usually assigned to all DV prosecutions. Both listened as I explained a 2004 California Supreme Court decision allowing vital expert testimony against first-time domestic batterers.

A mutual acquaintance usually works with their office as their DV expert. I’m only expert on the relevant law; she’s expert on the psychology of batterers and their victims. She’s a legend who’s educated local police and prosecutors for decades. She tells me Gallegos, but not Dikeman, has attended DV Coordinating Council meetings and Prevention Committee meetings.
EDGE: GALLEGOS.

IV. Alcohol and other drugs

Eureka is infamous for its crank problem. Hundreds of miles away, people call it “Eu-tweeka” – You Tweeka, – “tweeker” being a crank addict. Any criminal lawyer or cop can tell you crank is hands down the worst drug around. Local tsunamis of it, and crimes stemming from it, preceded Gallegos’ term.

The candidates agree Humboldt has problems with crank and alcohol. Gallegos says Arcata’s booze problem is no worse than the rest of the county’s, and Humboldt’s crank problem is no worse than the rest of America’s. Dikeman feels Humboldt’s violent crimes have their primary roots in crank use, and Arcata’s criminal problems stem mostly from alcohol abuse and its aftermath. He adds our county’s Drug Task Force is its primary weapon against hard drugs, and although it has had as many as 10 members at past times, it has only five now and has been understaffed throughout Gallegos’ tenure.

Gallegos replies: He has never pulled anyone out of the Task Force; other local agencies also deal with hard drugs; and drug-asset forfeitures – imposed on those who market plague drugs for profit – went up 50 percent in his first year.

Dikeman responded with specific stats: The Task Force had eight members in 2003, five to seven in 2004, three to five in 2005, and has five now. I have no reason to disbelieve him.

So both talk tough about drugs (except pot, happily). As with much else, it’s a matter of whom to believe. I believe these things:

(A) Eureka has a huge crank problem, which may be equaled in some parts of California, but certainly not all and certainly not all over America;

(B) I lived in an Arcata duplex for six years, with seven sets of housemates. Many thought nothing of driving home drunk frequently. Arcata has major drunk-driving problems;

(C) Gallegos is naive and oversanguine about crank’s consequences. He favors treatment over prison. Me, too, but on the first two or three go-rounds. Long-term crank use makes one “paranoid” in the clinical sense, permanently altering brain chemistry. It is, as one expert whose testimony I read said, “a much more malignant drug than heroin.”
Ideally, I believe in letting adults do whatever they want with their minds. The problem is, many crank addicts commit serious crimes (burglaries, robberies, home-invasions) to feed their habits. Others do irrational, violent things because they want to and they’ve lost their moral compass, meaning they care no more about others’ rights and feelings than many Arcatans (including me) do about Dubya’s. Once a crank addict has shown he/she is in this group, how many chances should he/she get?
I cannot tell you how many grief-stricken cranksters’ loved ones I have spoken to. Being rational, they cannot fathom what it has done to their previously kind, morally-centered and rational loved one. How does one tell them that person no longer exists?
EDGE: DIKEMAN.

V. Jurorgate

If you care enough to have read this far, you know Dikeman’s juror-dismissal story. You probably don’t know Gallegos’ story, but that’s about to change. Bottom line: Both should be embarrassed.

In Dikeman’s case, he prosecuted three defendants for murder. In selecting jurors, he dismissed three Native Americans. When defense counsel alleged he’d deliberately excluded Native Americans, he said of one that she worked for the tribe and that tribe employees are “more prone to associate themselves with the culture and beliefs of the tribe than with the mainstream system, and they are sometimes resistive of the criminal justice system [and] suspicious of the system.” Dikeman has told local media, and me, that various courts have found he did not exclude this woman for racial reasons.

Not so. The California appellate court found the above reason improper and said if it had been Dikeman’s “only or primary reason” for excluding her, “we would have some cause for concern.” They ruled, however, that Dikeman’s other proffered reasons were race-neutral and legitimate, making his improper reason harmless. The federal district court agreed, but said the record allows “no other conclusion than that [Dikeman’s] challenge was based on race.” The federal appeals court split 2-1, with dissenting Justice Johnnie Rawlinson blistering Dikeman. Now, 13 members of that court are reviewing it “en banc.”

Meanwhile, I have a “minute order” from People v. Meyers, where Gallegos was defense counsel. He challenged eight white male prospective jurors. The prosecutor (Dikeman) accused him of dismissing them for race and gender. The court ordered Gallegos to give explanations. The court later ruled Gallegos had satisfactorily explained four challenges, but not the other four. The court declared a mistrial and everything started anew (at considerable expense, but none like the expense involved if Dikeman’s case gets reversed).

Gallegos informed me he told the judge he would state in chambers why he dismissed the other four, but not in open court before Dikeman. I asked if this was because it would have revealed crucial defense strategy; he said he refused to reveal his thought process.

Baloney. When Dikeman was ordered to explain his reasons, he did so because a lawyer does what a judge orders. No transcript of Gallegos’ faux pas exists, but the clerk’s minute order shows: Gallegos asked permission to give reasons outside Dikeman’s presence; the court refused; reasons were given and accepted as to the first four; the matter was “deferred” as to the other four; and a mistrial was declared.

Either Gallegos refused a court order, meaning he deserved reporting to the State Bar, or he deliberately excluded jurors for race and gender. It stinks, either way.

ADVANTAGE, NOBODY. Two sorry stories.

VI. Violent crime

Again, whom to believe? Gallegos says violent crime has gone down greatly under him, and he promised to send me stats from the California Department of Justice proving so. But he didn’t. Dikeman counters this is a statewide trend since 1994 – one for which Gallegos deserves no credit.

Dikeman says crimes are over plea-bargained under Gallegos, though perhaps less so with violent crimes. He points to a monstrous case where a man serially molested his daughter, at least monthly, for several years and would have gone to prison forever, on medical and testimonial evidence. Gallegos says the defendant’s 16-year sentence was “the appropriate disposition,” one the victim never complained about, and that political foes previously used this case in the same racist manner Bush No. 1 used Willie Horton. (The defendant was Hispanic.)

Well, bullshit. Naturally the girl didn’t want her father jailed forever, but: 1. She’ll likely feel differently about him in 15 years; and 2. Long-term pedophiles are almost always incurable, so society needs protection from him. Yeah, I’m a defense attorney. I once freed a second-time rapist of mentally retarded women who was put away forever (part of my job). But what I’m saying is true, and as a registered Green who has never voted Republican, I couldn’t care less about Daddy’s race.

BIG ADVANTAGE: DIKEMAN.

My recommendation

From my tone, you’ll know the defense attorney is voting not for the maverick incumbent, but for the career prosecutor whom the cops support. Most of my reasons are detailed above. Here are the rest:

Gallegos has answers for everything. I’ve never met anyone whose answers came so quickly, with such polish - except about his law school(s). He likely sounded the same way when promising to get prosecutors off their anachronistic “at will” status and onto civil service status. It never happened. Indeed, he told them, “Disloyalty will not be tolerated” – a real morale builder.

He sounds great. What progressive doesn’t want to believe in him? But it’s a myth. He’s an intellectual lightweight and self-aggrandizer who tries to please everybody with glib answers.

Few of you know anyone whose disdain for many cops runs as deep as mine. Rogue cops routinely lie in court; to learn more, search Google for “testilying” and prepare to get sick. They’re intoxicated on power, as most would be in their shoes. They’re overwhelmingly right-wing.

But not all cops are bad. I have two friends of 25-plus years who were cops - one, a lieutenant. And when I say all the cops up here are for Dikeman, I’m not kidding. It’s certainly over 95 percent, and I’d bet a tidy sum it’s over 98 percent. It may be 100 percent.

You know how most progressives are dying inside, waiting for Dubya’s tenure to end? That’s how cops feel about Gallegos.
The Arcata Police do great work. With a mountain of crank in Eureka, a drunk-driving epidemic, and the Plaza reeking of alcohol day and night, they keep Arcata safe and clean. It’s GOT to be a hard job. I know from unimpeachable sources they are as strongly anti-Gallegos as I am anti-Bush. My ex-lieutenant friend talked to the highest-ranked of those sources, then agreed their gripes are legit.

Do we not owe the Arcata PD something? Ought we not at least consider their concerns, before voting?

I think so. I also think they deserve better than a glib orator with a naive perspective on crank, an appalling attitude about a 16-year sentence for a years-long resident child molester and a gift for rodomontade.

I have spent over $5,000 worth of my time researching this matter, pro bono publico. What began as a close call is now a rout. My lieutenant friend helped lots, but the fact my ultraliberal surgeon friend - as intelligent a person as I know, and an acquaintance of Dikeman’s has my exact perspective on this race is the clincher.

We don’t need a self-promoting illusion. We need an ethical, sincere, fair-minded, politically moderate prosecutor, not a self-promoting illusion with big ambitions. Dikeman is all of the former; Gallegos, I’m quite sure, is the latter.

Dikeman was straight with me and gave me everything I wanted, including the court opinions that slammed him.

He’s my strong choice for DA.

Jim Fahey writes appeals for inmates condemned to death or serving life without parole. He is a fanatical fan of the Beatles, classical music, fine dining and duplicate bridge.