Nobody likes change, says Dolores Carr. Try being the
change.
San Jose – Nobody likes change, says Dolores Carr.
Try being the change.
Carr is an outsider taking the reins from longtime District Attorney George Kennedy, the taciturn legend who steered the office for 16 years. As she takes office, Carr also shoulders a $5 million budget deficit and the fallout from a bruising Mercury News investigation, “Tainted Trials, Stolen Justice,” which gutted office morale and threw Kennedy’s office into a none-too-flattering spotlight.
For many prosecutors, the former family court judge is an unknown – and that makes people nervous. South County’s top DA, Frank Carrubba, can barely remember the office without Kennedy. Gang prosecutor Stuart Scott, who was hired by Kennedy, lionizes his prosecutor’s savvy and efforts to build “one of the best, if not the best, crime lab in the state of California.” Neither was sure how to describe Carr. Asked to talk about the new DA, and her plans, DA media coordinator David Tomkins demurred, “I think it’s a little early for anybody to be talking about it.”
Carr takes it in stride. After a bitter campaign that divvied prosecutors between Carr and her opponent, assistant DA Karyn Sinunu, she’s gently mending the embattled office. A mild-mannered reformer, Carr isn’t storming the castle. Her day-to-day work sounds almost dull: boning up on the budget, meeting and greeting DAs far and wide, and learning how the office operates.
“Any changes I make will be done thoughtfully and carefully,” she said. “I’m not coming in and changing 50 people’s jobs in one week.”
It’s a spoonful-of-sugar approach for the ailing office, and Carr, with her disarming blue eyes and Kewpie-doll smile, is just the one to administer it. As a candidate, she asserted that the Mercury News series revealed “a failure in management” in the office. As the newly-minted DA, she’s using the controversy as a springboard for reform.
Assuaging fears, inside the office and out
Thus far, Carr has three answers to reform the office. One: Assign an ethics adviser. Two: Train attorneys to make better decisions, earlier in their careers. And three: Smooth the discovery process, which gives crucial information to defense attorneys, to eliminate charges of foul play.
Her diplomatic approach has carried through to her appointments. Deputy DA Kathy Storton, tapped by Carr as the office’s new ethics adviser, is a familiar face in the office, with more than 20 years of prosecution under her belt. Storton is known for her tough-on-crime stance and her wide-ranging legal knowledge, said Carr. And she’s nobody’s boss: not a supervisor, not a manager, Storton is “someone people within the department feel comfortable with,” Carr said.
Selecting an insider such as Storton was a shift from Carr’s earlier focus on appointing outsiders to the office. Carr’s first pick for chief assistant was Superior Court Judge Kevin Murphy; after Carr learned that California’s constitution bars judges from taking other public office during their terms, Murphy declined Carr’s offer. The pick would have bumped the newest assistant DA, Sinunu-booster Rolanda Pierre-Dixon, back to being a deputy DA.
Now, Carr says she’s “gone back to rethink everything,” and could pick an insider for the assistant job, too – or just keep Chief Assistant Marc Buller, Kennedy’s pick. Buller endorsed Carr after losing to her in the primary.
And Carr already has the ball rolling on her latter two goals. She’s met with assistant DAs to talk about attorney training, to ensure that young DAs aren’t micromanaged, and develop their own judgment.
“Mistakes aren’t career-ending” – with the exception of lying, she hastens to add – “but we expect people to learn.”
To get defense attorneys the evidence they’re entitled to, she’s met with the public defender’s office and started hammering out a process “to look at glitches” in the hand-off, when they occur.
“Much of the issue is communication,” Carr said, “or the lack of it.”
Sinunu explained the concern: “We need a uniform process, where every attorney completes the discovery task just like every other attorney … One of the major things that ensures a fair trial to a defendant, is making sure that the defendant has a complete set of all the reports used in the investigation against them.”
Even the potentially thorny position in which she finds herself with Sinunu, her election-rival turned employee, seems to soften at her touch. During the campaign, Sinunu swiped at Carr’s credentials and her marriage to a San Jose cop. Now that Sinunu reports to Carr, both say there’s no hard feelings.
The $5 million elephant in the room
Whether Carr can dissolve budget barriers, however, remains to be seen. “My main concern is to avoid layoffs,” Carr said, “and I want to keep as many programs as we can.” But she hinted that popular projects like the Cold Case Unit and the Innocence Project might go under the knife.
That means the Neighborhood Prosecutor job, a community position dear to Gilroy Police Chief Gregg Giusiana, probably won’t be revived. Nor is outlying South County likely to get a bigger piece of the pie, as the DA parcels out scarce resources. Carrubba’s wish list includes a specialty DA for domestic violence, but right now, the trailer where South County prosecutors work couldn’t even accommodate one.
