I dropped a line to the MCDA main office, and was put in contact with Norm Frink, Deputy District Attorny for the county and a frequent spokesman for the office. As a result there's a fair bit to read that Frink has commented on in the service of his job, but he's also cropped up in other contexts. He's written in support of Measure 11 (no surprise I suppose), seemed quite gung ho about using his office to report undocumented aliens to federal authorities, and has even gotten involved in the political process, collecting hundreds of signatures for Ralph Nader's presidential bid in 2004...as a Republican. (We know he was collecting sigs because he had his thrown out by the Secretary of State, and we know he was Republican because he just changed it this spring to Democrat. (Not before asking his new friends to check out the whole deal with William Ayers, though, sigh.) While I mention all that for the sake of context, I don't want to directly imply that Frink's political leanings may have something to do with his statements and actions regarding this issue. I don't want to conclusively dismiss it either, however, so interpret the meaning as you wish. If I had to pick a single word to describe Frink's attitude during our call, I would use "dismissive"--whether related to me, or the topic at hand. I asked if the MCDA was aware of the Wilson ruling on Sizemore, and he indicated that he knew what he'd heard from media accounts, but that was it. I asked if he had read the ruling, and he said brusquely, "I have not read it, and I have no intention of reading it." Well now! You'd think it had naked pictures of Lonnie Roberts in it, or something. "No intention!" When I asked whether the office planned to do anything investigative regarding the ruling in Sizemore's civil case--prefacing that I understood he was indeed involved in civil litigation at this time, not criminal--Frink said his office was "not in the practice" of involving itself unless the judge made a formal referral for investigation based on her ruling. To date I have confirmed with Wilson's office that she has not issued a referral; her spokesperson would not comment on the possibiiity that she might. I began to press Mr. Frink some on his response, given the implication that no case could be important enough to investigate, if a judge decides not to specifically refer it. I asked why they wouldn't move forward themselves if they thought there was potential criminal activity, and he said "we're very busy prosecuting traditional criminal cases" and that "perjury in a civil case is not traditionally handled by us." This prompted me to ask, "what makes perjury a non-traditional crime?" That didn't sit well with Frink, who began repeating "I'm not going to argue with you about it," which seemed an odd thing to say in response to a direct question based on his previous statement. Further probes resulted only in repetition of the principle, saying "it's not a traditional criminal case," rather than what made perjury qualify as "non-traditional." In subsequent email conversations, Frink managed to get across that that the non-traditionality doesn't refer to the potential crime, but rather simply that the process itself would be non-traditional, for them to get involved without a referral. So the bottom line for the MCDA is, until someone important tells us a crime might have been committed, it's their policy to ignore the possibility and act as if none has. Still a little unsatisfied with this answer, I spoke with Wilson's office as I said, and asked whether they knew of any administrative or statutory principles that PREVENTS the local DA from initiating their own investigation without a judge's referral, and they did not. That statement probably shouldn't serve as the last legal word on protocol, but it does indicate that the judge's office does not consider their failure to refer the case, a bar towards investigating some of the conclusions reached by the judge in that case. Pressed for a final word, Wilson's spokesperson allowed that she "didn't think the judge plans on pursuing anything." Finally, using my meager leverage as a Friend of (AG-elect) Kroger, I got some time to chat with his aide Ben Unger yesterday. He was naturally hesistant to get into any specifics, not only due to the ongoing civil proceeding against Sisemore, but also because Kroger is not yet sworn in as AG. However, he did manage to close the triangle of impetus-shifting, since Unger noted that their typical response would likely be to "follow the local DA's lead," since they're "better initially equipped" to handle the investigation. When asked what would drive this policy, Unger agreed that it was more a question of resources than turf; ie, that it wasn't about stepping on the MCDA's toes, but rather that they'd simply do a better job working on it initially under Multno County auspices. However, as with Judge Wilson's spokesperson, I did get an indication that "Frink said it, that settles it" was not necessarily the last word on anything. If it were important enough to the Attorney General and his office to make sure that a needed investigation was done regarding Sizemore's conduct in the civil proceeding, the AG would have the power and the ability to conduct it centrally, regardless of the position and intent of local DA's. I found this to be the key question, and the primary reason I went ahead and contacted the AG-elect, because of Kroger's assertions during the campaign that he wanted to be much more aggressive on the people's behalf in enforcing laws, to the point where stasis or local politics was inhibiting needed action. The usual example was that of an industrial site in Portland that had been fined--weakly--several times for poor toxic materials handling, with no other action ever being taken (such as suspending or cancelling the business license) by the state's Justice arm. Unger agreed that there have been "missed opportunities for reform" on the initiative process in the past, but still demurred when it came to what should be done about folks like Sizemore. When I asked what could be done to hold petitioners and their agents more accountable for activities undertaken while trying to get a measure on the ballot, the answer was that Secretary of State-elect Kate Brown would naturally "drive the process" in this area, but that a Kroger AGship would make the office "as aggressive as we can be" to enforce sanctions on malefactors. So, a quick recap: *The DA says it's the judge's job to put him on it *The judge says it's the DA's job to investigate it; they don't need her *The AG-elect says the local DA is the best equipped to investigate, but they (the AG) could do it if they had to which of course means *Nobody's going to touch this fucking thing. Coda: I almost forgot this piece, from last Thursday in The O: when it comes to a CRIMINAL case that's been in the media, Frink sings a different tune on whether perjury is worth looking into: A Multnomah County prosecutor will work with Portland police to determine whether an officer lied during the 2006 criminal investigation into the death of James F. Chasse Jr. "We have an allegation that somebody's untruthful in a criminal investigation, and we're going to make that determination one way or another," said Norm Frink, a chief deputy district attorney. [emph me] |
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