PORT ANGELES — Clallam County’s top prosecutor defended her office against claims of inefficiencies and high turnover made by her two political challengers during a forum Friday.
Deb Kelly, incumbent Clallam County prosecuting attorney who is bidding for a third term in the upcoming election, traded jabs with challengers Larry Freedman and Lauren Erickson in a closed forum at a Clallam County Bar Association luncheon.
“I’m not going to apologize for the turnover,” Kelly said in response to Freedman’s claims that 33 lawyers have left the office since Kelly took over in 2002.
Many left because they were offered better paying jobs or simply retired, she said.
“Yes, I terminated some people and some people left because they were unhappy,” Kelly said.
“I’m not going to apologize for high standards. Public employment is not an entitlement. Public service is a calling.”
Each candidate for the job, which now pays an annual salary of $121,887, was given 10 minutes to make an opening statement. Each answered questions from the audience and made two-minute closing remarks.
Steve Methner, a Port Angeles insurance agent and president of the Port Angeles Rotary Club, moderated the 80-minute forum at the North Olympic Skills Center in Port Angeles.
Three-way race
The three candidate will face off in the Aug. 17 primary. The top two vote-getters, regardless of political party, will advance to the Nov. 2 general election.
Erickson and Freedman are running as Democrats. Kelly is a Republican. Freedman said he wants to remove political affiliation from the position.
A former deputy prosecutor, administrative law judge and practicing Port Angeles attorney, Erickson is running because the current office “has serious structural, organizational and personnel issues that need to be addressed,” she said.
“Under my leadership, the first thing I will change is that attorneys will be treated like the adults and professionals that they are,” she said.
Erickson said she would improve what she described as a poor work environment.
“A lot of people have left simply because the office is such a grim place to work,” she said.
Both challengers said high turnover under Kelly’s leadership has cost the taxpayers money and justice.
Delayed justice
“Justice delayed is justice denied,” said Freedman, a Sequim attorney.
“There is no reason to keep these cases hanging on and on and on. It is not only inefficient, it’s inappropriate and it is wrong.”
Freedman has worked in law for 47 years. He has been a practicing attorney, judge and a law professor at George Mason University.
He was named one of the top 100 attorneys in the nation by the American Board of Criminal Lawyers in 2006.
“I wouldn’t be doing this if I really didn’t feel that there are problems that need to be addressed in the prosecutor’s office,” Freedman said.
“I frankly do not agree with the way the office is being run right now, and that’s why I’m running.”
Erickson said an ongoing age-discrimination lawsuit filed by former employees against the prosecutor’s office has cost the taxpayers more than $400,000 in legal fees.
For her part, Kelly said she is confident that the county will be vindicated.
Turnover
Freedman said 27 staffers have left the 21-person office in the last four years. That turnover, Freedman said, has caused disruption and court delays.
If elected, Freedman said he would assist the deputy lawyers and not micromanage them.
“You don’t need to look over their shoulder and make every decision yourself, but you do need to be involved to the extent that they get what they need to do an effective job,” Freedman said.
“You set a standard for ethical behavior and you insist upon that.”
To illustrate his concerns about the office, Freedman cited an overturned 2006 murder conviction of Robert Gene Covarrubias, a recent second trial for Steven Ong in a sexual-assault case and the 2009 decision to charge with first-degree murder then-16-year-old Lauryn L. Last, who is accused of drowning her newborn.
“You don’t overcharge cases,” Freedman said. “You charge what you can prove.”
Covarrubias, who had won a second trial from the state Court of Appeals, instead pleaded guilty July 23 to first-degree murder with sexual motivation in the 2004 death of 15-year-old Melissa Leigh Carter, and was sentenced to life in prison in August.
Ong was convicted in a second trial and was sentenced to life in prison without parole in May.
Since the original charge, the Prosecuting Attorney’s Office has had the charge against Last, who has not been tried, reduced to second-degree murder.
Freedman said that delays have gotten so bad that a woman arrested in December 2006 for allegedly taking money from the Sheriff’s Office has not yet gone to trial.
He referred to Staci L. Allison, who is expected to be tried June 28 on first-degree theft and money laundering charges.
“There are all kinds of instances where these things happen, and they shouldn’t happen,” he said.
Public disclosure
Erickson said she was denied a public records request when she tried to find out how much the public was spending on legal fees to defend the age-discrimination lawsuit. Attorney-client privilege was cited in the denial.
“Public disclosure requests, which are the basis of transparency in government in the state of Washington, is treated like an annoyance by the prosecutor’s office,” Erickson said.
“Every lawyer in this room knows legal fees are not attorney-client privilege.”
Kelly accused Erickson of misrepresenting the facts.
“That request was not handled by the prosecutor’s office and she knows it,” Kelly said.
“We outsourced that particular request because it involved issues involving the office, and another attorney made that decision. It was not the prosecutor’s office.
“The prosecutor’s office supports transparency in government.”
Erickson trumpeted her experience as a prosecutor and her skills in child support enforcement, mental health commitment proceedings, criminal cases, giving legal advice to departments, code enforcement and her appellate court background.
“I am the only candidate here that has the requisite prosecutorial experience, legal skills, people skills and leadership skills to bring this office into the next decade,” Erickson said.
Kelly admitted that caseloads have exploded and the time it takes a defendant to go to trial has increased under her leadership.
“What we are doing is more with less,” she said.
“You all know that budgets have declined and that cuts have been made in county offices.”
Budget cuts brought the axe to two felony deputy prosecutor positions in her second year in office, she said.
“We have never regained those two felony deputy prosecutors, even though the felony case load is, on average, about 100 cases a year higher,” Kelly said.
She said the prosecutor’s office does more law enforcement training than ever before, added a victim witness position with defendants’ fees, introduced in a pre-file and post-file diversion program and maintained drug courts for adults and teens.
Conviction rate
At trial, the conviction rate is more than 90 percent.
“They are doing a great job,” Kelly said of her attorneys. “We’ve done major cases. We’ve done well on them.”
On the civil side, the prosecutor’s office has added a full-time land-use mitigator in Chief Civil Deputy Prosecuting Attorney Doug Jensen.
“We assisted the builder’s industry in developing a builder’s board of appeals structure,” Kelly said.
“We have proposed nuisance abatement policies to the county commissioners. The civil side of the office is doing public records requests and is doing a great job of public records requests.”
The two challengers painted a different picture of the prosecutor’s office.
“In this community right now, law enforcement and certainly the courts, all have significant problems with what’s going on in the prosecutor’s office,” Freedman said.
“And it’s going to take somebody outside to come in and straighten it out and regain their respect.”
Asked about their views on the death penalty, all three candidates said capital punishment needs to be carefully considered and treated as an extreme measure. None of them said he or she opposed the death penalty.
“I look forward to other forums where the public is invited and can attend, and where we have the opportunity to actually debate some of these issues,” Kelly said.
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Reporter Rob Ollikainen can be reached at 360-417-3537 or at rob.ollikainen@peninsuladailynews.com.