VROMAN

by Lynda McClure and Bruce Haldane

Norm Vroman was interviewed in December, after he was elected and prior to taking office.

Next issue: An interview Tony Craver, newly elected Sheriff of Mendocino County.

The election, this past November, of a new district attorney and sheriff creates an opportunity for improved relations between law enforcement and the community.

Norm Vroman, newly elected District Attorney of Mendocino County, is interviewed here

Will the Libertarian resistance to government regulation affect how you will pursue environmental regulation?

I'm not really sure what Libertarians believe in. I'm a registered Libertarian, and many people have tried to put me into a box. I'm a Libertarian because I just couldn't stand either the Republicans or Democrats. That doesn't mean I buy in wholesale to all the Libertarian philosophy. When I get support from the NRA and the Green Party, I've got to be crossing lines. So this business of my Libertarian label is interesting, but not very valid in terms of where I'm going to go. If being a Libertarian is the basis for people thinking I'm not involved in environmental issues, I've lived off the grid for over twenty years.

Libertarians believe that the less government is the best government, and I adhere to that philosophy. If I can do it for myself, I don't want the government doing it for me.

Policies and procedures

Do you have particular plans to change the way policy is applied in the D.A.'s office?

Let me start by saying the DA's office currently has no policies and procedures manual, not for anything. I think that's amazing. That's one of my major endeavors between now and the time I take over. I'm in the process of putting together a policies and procedures manual, not only for the department and lawyers and other people who work there, but I'm going to give a copy to law enforcement so they understand what my policies and procedures are, and so we all have a standardized method of evaluating cases. For example, when we have a case that could be charged as a felony or misdemeanor, I want some objective criteria to make that determination so we have consistency in filing. Not only for the office, but for the bureau of investigation, which is the law enforcement branch. There are seven sworn law enforcement officers in the DA's office, and yet there are no written procedures for them. The manual I'm preparing will include them.

Should the D.A.'s office get involved when a law enforcement or other agencies don't have policies in place?

I don't really have much control over another agency regarding whether or not they have policies. I question the intelligence of an agency that doesn't have written policies and procedures.

What if an agency has a policy, but grossly violates it. Is that something you'd get into?

Not unless it results in a violation of the law. A violation of policies and procedures manual is totally in-house. But if there are policies and procedures that are violated and someone gets hurt as a result, as an administrator of that agency, I'd sure want to know why the violation occurred

Pending cases

Some members of the community feel that the DA's office, and Susan Massini specifically, really white washed the killing of Marvin Noble. Would you have done anything differently?

Who knows. I don't know what information she had at her disposal. I can tell you this: there are several different agencies presently in the process of investigating the matter. So regardless of what she said or did, that doesn't mean it's over. Protection and Advocacy people were in town last week. We have not heard the last of this case.

How about Bear Lincoln's case. The file is with the State Attorney General's office where Susan Massini sent it. You haven't had an opportunity to look at it yet, is that right?

I was in court when the statement that the file had been shipped to the Attorney General's office was made to Judge Golden. I waited for Judge Golden to say "Why?", but he didn't ask the question; nobody asked the question about what was the legal reason. In fact there is no legal reason. I'm told the file is at the courthouse now. Susan Massini said in court that she'd sent the file to the state, but I talked to a newspaper reporter who had interviewed her, and she told him that the file was in her office and I knew it, and could come look at it at any time. I haven't met with Susan as yet.

(Editor's note: It has been confirmed by Nick Wilson of the Albion Monitor that Susan Massini sent Lincoln's file to the State Attorney General's office on 11/15/98. Wilson's comprehensive coverage of this case can be obtained from the Internet at: http://www.monitor.net/monitor.)

Susan Massini told KZYXandZ news that the file had been sent to the Attorney General's office because you weren't going to prosecute it.

Well, I have never said I wouldn't prosecute this case. Normally, a prosecutor would not retry a case where you have a jury verdict that comes back 10 - 2 in favor of acquittal unless there was some glaring piece of evidence that wasn't presented, that new evidence is discovered, or there is something in the file that should have been presented and wasn't. Until I see that file, I can't make that decision, but generally speaking, unless there is something like that in the file, I would not retry the case. That's all I've ever said, every time I've been asked. If Susan Massini interprets that to mean I'm not going to retry the case, maybe she knows there's nothing more in the file.

What do you plan to do with the environmental prosecution staff?

Paul Hagen, the current prosecutor of environmental law violations, is now half time. The other half he is contracted out to the California District Attorney's Association to work with Del Norte, Lake and Humboldt to help with prosecution of environmental crime. I'm going to keep Paul, but my idea is to hire another part time person so I have two half time people doing the environmental work. There is plenty of work for a full time attorney, but if I can have two half time people, I get the benefit of two people, two heads and styles and methods of dealing with cases. I don't intend to limit them only to environmental issues. I want to go into consumer fraud, as well.

Medical marijuana

Let's talk about medical marijuana.

All during the campaign Prop 215 was my focus regarding marijuana. Immediately after taking office that's one thing I want to get straightened out, if I can do it. I'm not sure I can do it; I've got to have cooperation and support from people. Tony Craver and I have talked about this. I've been impressed with what's going on in Oakland, which has a working operation under the auspices of the county. But as we speak we have an operating cannabis club in Mendocino County that hasn't been shut down and it's functioning. One approach is to say, as long as it's functioning, I'm not going to fool with it, just ignore it. That creates kind of a paranoia because they don't know when someone's going to come down on them. I'm sure there are going to be some abuses, but there are a lot of people who are getting it and need it. I would like to create the situation where they can do that without the fear of being prosecuted.

I've been out to the club a few times and watched the operation. I think it's amazing the people there can put it together and make it work. I'm not so sure the governmental agencies could do as well. But I think we need to look to that operation and I would ask that maybe the cannabis club people could be incorporated into it, to run the program for the county. Once we put it under the umbrella of the county, whether it's under Public Health or however else we do it, when it's a county sponsored program,  the federal government can't say anything about it. The Tenth Amendment reserves for the state all the rights they haven't given up. I don't recall us ever giving up the right to deal with medical situations as a governmental agency. Then rather then fighting just the local citizens, they'd be fighting the county government. My attitude is the Tenth Amendment allows us to do that.

What's your position on decriminalization of marijuana?

It never came up during the election about my position on decriminalization of marijuana, although that is what the media is focusing on now. After the election they asked Tony and I if we favored decriminalization, and when we said yes they took that and ran with it. I told them it wasn't a campaign issue, but they said "This is news!". Some people translated that into my favoring the legalization of marijuana, but I never said that. I'm in favor of decriminalization of marijuana, and it should be handled like prohibition. The only problem is, what are we going to do with all those federal employees who work for the DEA (Drug Enforcement Agency)? During prohibition they just took them out of there and put them in the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms. Then they started focusing on guns, and now we've gone crazy on guns. The DEA could change their focus to synthetic drugs and dangerous drugs, but that's not nearly as easy to do as going out and taking out someone's pot plants.

There are three issues around medical marijuana: possession, cultivation, and distribution. The weakest link in the whole thing is cultivation. If this was under the county, we could circumvent that entirely. We've got law enforcement out there ripping up pot all the time and destroying it. What's to say they couldn't just bring it in and process it for medical use, and the county would distribute it. The flip side is, if a county agency is distributing medical marijuana and they get a bad batch, or someone suffers because of it, then the county is liable for it. That's where the county is coming from. But my approach is to take the growing element out of medical marijuana so that it's supplied by a governmental agency. That does away with the issue of whether or not someone is growing for medical purposes. Then we are only dealing with if and why this person is entitled to have it. That seems to be an easier issue to deal with.

Susan Massini has stated that a letter of recommendation from a doctor is an affirmative defense for possession of marijuana, but she rejected the idea of carrying a card with them to show the police and avoid being arrested and charged. Her reasoning was that because someone has a prescription doesn't necessarily mean they will always use it legally, for example while driving, and that it would have to be determined on a case-by-case basis in court.

Do you think a card like that would be a good idea, to avoid being arrested and taken to jail and going through the court process?

We still have laws that say you can't drive under the influence of anything that impairs your ability. That goes for medical marijuana, Valium, Prozac, or for anything else. Just because you have a prescription for it doesn't mean you can go out and drive a car under the influence of it. If that is what she's referring to, I understand. But if someone is certified as being in need of medical marijuana and they have that card with them, and they are stopped and have marijuana with them, they should be able to show that card to the officer.

What is your opinion on the asset forfeiture situation here?

I can't really talk intelligently about it because I don't know what's been happening in Mendocino County up to now. Those cases are handled in Willits by Kevin Maloney. I know what the law says and what the law requires to exercise the forfeiture law. It has to do only with the commercial manufacture and sale of dangerous drugs. You have to show some nexus between the property you want to take and the crime being committed. If you don't have that nexus, you can't do it. The law requires, at least in real property forfeitures, that you must have a conviction before you can proceed against the property. There are some aspects of the law that say you can do the forfeiture automatically without going to court, in certain types of cases. For instance, if you get someone who's cooking meth, it's obvious that whatever they were using to cook it with is an instrumentality of the crime. You don't have to go through court to do that.

I have some questions of my own about what's going on here. My attitude is you don't take property without due process of law. You must follow the rules. If the rules say this is what can be done, then fine. There's a certain amount of discretion. It's a subjective thing to determine whether a garden hose is an instrumentality of the crime if you water the pot with it.

I think there have been some abuses. I'll know better when I get in there and take a look. There are specific limits to what money from asset forfeiture can be used for. It can't be used to pay for salaries in the DA's office. The police departments cannot use it to supplement budgetary needs. It can be used only for acquisition of property that they couldn't get otherwise.

Current situation

How do you evaluate the current law enforcement situation in Mendocino County?

We are in a very unique situation. There are fairly new police chiefs in Ft. Bragg and Ukiah. Willits is considering doing away with their department and contracting with the Sheriff's office for police services. They've had a lot of problems attracting officers due to the pay. So that means you have a whole new crew of people in charge of law enforcement in Mendocino County. That doesn't happen, ever!

Is there something you'd like to do to nurture cooperation among the new law enforcement personnel?

I've already met with Rich Wiseman, Chief in Ft. Bragg. Tony and I talk every other day. We've been talking for the last year and a half; why would we stop now? I've talked on the phone with (Ukiah Police Chief) John Williams. We'll be meeting before I take office. Yes! I see a real potential for some concerted effort in changing the manner in which criminal justice is administered in Mendocino County.

What kinds of changes would you like to see?

I would like to see my being able to create a situation where the Human Rights Monitoring Project has no business to deal with. My attitude is that our law enforcement personnel have tremendous authority, tremendous power over the people of Mendocino County. They've been given that power, but along with the power goes an equal responsibility of making sure it's not abused. What I've told all of them is that my main focus is to be sure our authority is not abused. I don't want anybody abusing their authority. In talking with them, I think they all feel that way as well, so in feeling that way and doing something about it, I think there's going to be some very positive changes. All those people I've named, we came to power in the county by working with each other. When I was a public defender, they were patrolmen. Here we have a group of people who are indigenous to the county, we're not outsiders. We know the county, we know the people and I think we have the opportunity of a lifetime. We're coming into the year 2000. That brings an optimistic outlook that things will change. I think we have an excellent opportunity for that.

What would you like to see the county residents do to improve relations with law enforcement?

First of all we've got to have good communication, and I believe there has been poor communication with the community from the District Attorney. That's been made abundantly clear.

Are you inclined to prosecute police officers who abuse their authority?

The simple answer to that is, of course. I will back a police officer all the way as long as he or she is going by the rules. If they don't go by the rules, I'll be all over them. The hard thing is how do you document police violence. Most of the time it's one-on-one, an officer and a defendant. You can get a clue to it when you get a bunch of reports coming across your desk with one officer having "resisting arrest" on everybody he arrests. That's a sign to me that there is some problem. Normally you can arrest people with a certain amount of problems, but if you get one officer coming along consistently reporting resisting or obstructing or delaying an officer whenever he writes up someone for disturbing the peace or shoplifting or whatever, and he always adds on a "148", that's a clue there's a problem. In the past we've had several instances of law enforcement officers violating that trust, and they've been prosecuted and drummed out of the business.

How about welfare fraud? Some of us are concerned about prosecutions where a woman has already repaid the amount wrongfully taken, yet she is arrested, spends time in jail, pays a fine and is on probation. That seems very harsh. These women are not a threat to public safety. I question the use of county money on court and probation costs.

Based on what you've said, there are a number of ways a case like this can be handled differently. First of all, she should not be arrested. That's strictly a power trip, I can do this to you so I will. In cases of crime against people or property we may have to arrest. But this is not that kind of case and I wouldn't want to handle it that way. We can send them a letter and request they come into the office to talk. One way to handle these kinds of cases is through a DA diversion, or site hearing, or DA hearing. We can ask her to come in and bring a lawyer if she wants, and we'll sit down and talk about what's happened. The DA has the power to say: "OK, you made a mistake. You paid the money back. We don't want to see this happen again. We're not going to file this case, but we want you to report to us." I would also want to know if she's getting child support and if it's current. If she wasn't getting active payments for child support, I would take the DA diversion route, and she would never get into the court system. As the DA I can handle a lot of cases this way. That keeps the courts from getting clogged with cases that shouldn't be there That's not utilized now, though it was in the past. It's used in other counties, and it will be reinstituted. It does several things: It allows us to use our discretion in keeping people out of the criminal justice system who don't belong there, and it frees up the court from cases that are questionable, that they don't need to deal with.

What about domestic violence. Do you see it being a different kind of assault then other assaults?

Yes and no. Its been around for a long, long time, and it's a highly emotionally charged issue. It's like abortion or politics or guns. Most people approach it with their minds made up as to what they want to see happen. Domestic violence is a crime against a person, which I'm very interested in prosecuting. There are abuses on both sides of this. When you have two people living together, there are always two sides to a story. I've seen situations where the man mouths off and gets pummeled by the woman. Very seldom does anything get filed against the woman. You could count on one hand the number of spousal abuse cases by women against men. On the other hand, you get the woman mouthing off. Usually there's alcohol or drugs involved; both people are under the influence, and the situation deteriorates and somebody gets hit. That's one of the reasons I'm putting into place my policies and procedures manual. We set forth a very succinct, distinct way that we determine whether we file, and whether it's a felony or misdemeanor. There are a lot of factors that go into it. First and foremost is the extent of the injury, and how the injury is inflicted. Do they use their hands or a dangerous weapon? What kind of medical treatment is required? What is the personal history and has it happened before?

Domestic violence is obviously something we have to deal with. I see every policeman driving around with a bumper sticker saying "There's no excuse for domestic violence". Immediately I think that all other violence is excusable. When you're dealing with people who live together or are friends or know each other, you have to handle it a little differently.

One difference between that and stranger assault is that both of the people could very well need counseling, but unless we arrest them both, we can't require counseling for both, it is required only of the defendant. This puts a club in the hand of the partner who isn't on the program. All they have to do is pick up the phone and call the police and say he hit me again and off he's taken. It's an area you really have to be careful with. There are many justifiable, honest, righteous domestic violence cases. How you separate them out and make sure the system doesn't abuse people is a good question. I'm not sure I have the answer. It's on everybody's mind at this point. I'm sure I'm going to get criticisms on this, some people will think I'm doing the right thing and other people will think I'm not.

How will you address white collar crime?

It hasn't been addressed in the county for a number of years. I would address it vigorously and directly. There again its a matter of uncovering it and putting the case together. You have to have investigators who are something other then law enforcement investigators, who know something about accounting and so on. And there are several areas that I've become aware of that certainly need attention, such as public entities. And I expect to get significant input from the grand jury. They pick up a lot of information about things going on that people would hesitate to bring to the DA. I intend to use the grand jury to investigate these things, and I'll help them however I can. That certainly will be a change. They haven't had much help from the DA's office.

Are you going to change the physical layout of the DA's office?

Yes, as much as I can. I'm meeting with Buildings and Grounds to look at the office. We're in the basement, although there is another basement that's lower. I don't know how many of the walls can be moved around, but I definitely want an area where you open the door and walk into the DA's office, and you have a place you can sit down and read a magazine or wait for someone to talk with. You don't have that now. I can't hear through that glass now, so when someone comes in, we can't have a conversation. Every other DA's office I've been in has a nice reception area, and it creates an atmosphere of it being a public office. Right now the D.A.'s office looks like the IRS or jail.

Would you support a citizens' advisory committee?

Oh no! Not another committee! I figure every citizen in Mendocino County is an advisory committee to me. I will return calls and I will answer correspondence. If somebody has a gripe I want to hear about it.

Is there anything you'd like to say in closing?

Just that this is part of my campaign promise, that I will be accessible. That's what I'm doing now, being accessible. I like the feedback. I like to have positive support when I've done something positive and I expect people will rag on me when they feel I've done something wrong.

Copyright Mendocino Environmental Center 1999
Permission granted to excerpt or use this article if source is cited 

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Last Update: 1/18/99