Carr v. Rosen: Split Decision

Posted by The Fly on Monday, March 29, 2010 Comments (2)

In what felt more like an elaborate editorial meeting than legal proceedings, DA candidate Jeff Rosen emerged from court on Monday morning with a new draft of his candidate’s statement, hammered into shape by the judge, his lawyer James Towery and his opponent DA Dolores Carr’s lawyer, Guyton Jinkerson. “I’m very pleased,” he said. “We won.”

That’s a somewhat subjective interpretation. Carr filed a lawsuit last week arguing that Rosen’s candidate’s statement did two things in violation of California Election Code: It made a comparison of candidates by saying Rosen is “the only candidate who has prosecuted hundreds of dangerous criminals,” and it improperly used complimentary quotes from retired DA George Kennedy and Merc columnist Scott Herhold.

Rosen agreed to change “the only candidate who has prosecuted” to simply “I have prosecuted,” although he got up and whispered in Towery’s ear, at the last second, that he’d like the word “personally” added to make it “I have personally prosecuted.” Judge Gregory Ward was not interested. “It would be difficult to understand how Mr. Rosen would have prosecuted the cases other than personally,” he said.

Towery argued that the use of quotes was not only acceptable but that Carr herself had allowed Supervising Deputy District Attorney Lane Liroff to use one of her favorable quotes during his run for judge. Ward agreed. “I don’t think the code was meant to be read as narrowly as the petitioner does,” he said. The final score: comparison out, quotes in.

According to both sides, they each won the crucial decisoin. “I think the most important thing was to prevail on the issue of comparison. That was clearly improper,” said Jinkerson afterward. “He’s a lawyer. He’s a very well educated man. It seems to me he should have read his statutes.”

As far as quotes, Diane Moore of the county registrar’s office told Fly that her office has always accepted quotes in the past, and that Rosen is not the only one doing it this year. In fact, District 1 Board of Supervisors candidate Mike Wasserman quotes three different people in his statement. And his opponent, Dr. Peter Arrellano, quotes the Hippocratic Oath.