Last year when Clinton Parish was running for a Yolo County judgeship against Judge Dan Maguire, he made a critical mistake that, in the heat of the moment, is easy to make – he thought his political team had properly vetted an attack ad that they were recommending he launch against sitting Judge Maguire.
He was wrong, they had not, and the allegations turned out to be embarrassingly false. The mistake cost him his dignity, his election, and ultimately his job. He had to move his family from the place they had lived for over ten years.
And so, at the end of the day, one is tempted to believe that Mr. Parish has suffered enough for his mistakes made in the spring of 2012.
I can understand that the bar association wants to send a strong message in this case. They want to make it clear that, while mudslinging and personal attacks are appropriate in the political realm, judicial candidates are held to a higher standard.
That certainly makes sense, after all. We do not want a judge who is political, we want one who is fair. And during the course of his 2012 campaign, given his character attacks and outright politicking for a prosecutor as judge, it was unclear that the public could buy into the notion that Clinton Parish would be fair as a judge.
At the same time, as many have pointed out, the history of the bar association is that they come down hard on the Clinton Parishes of the world for what they do on the campaign trial, but they turn the other way regarding what they do in the courtroom.
In Preventable Error, Kathleen Ridolfi and Maurice Possley found that, even in cases of reversible error as the result of prosecutorial misconduct, prosecutors since 1997 have almost never been held accountable for their courtroom practices by the bar associations.
It is almost therefore hypocritical that the State Bar of California would throw the book at Clinton Parish for a dirty campaign, when they look the other way as people end up wrongfully convicted on the basis of preventable and sometimes intentional error by prosecutors.
Based on all of this, I could be prepared to let this matter go. While Mr. Parish, when he faces a hearing, probably will not get more than a slap on the wrist, the extent to which he gets a harsher penalty can only be attributed to him.
Unfortunately for Mr. Parish, he remains his own worst enemy. Here is a man who has fought for accountability for defendants’ conduct – you commit a crime, he is going to prosecute you to the full extent of the law.
And yet, facing his own mistakes, he does not even own up to them. Instead, he throws his campaign advisors under the bus and puts the full blame on them.
His defense to the accusation that he made false and misleading statements is that he “did not know at the time of publishing that the information on the mailer was false.”
He said he “trusted the people working for the campaign as well as their judgment” and that up until this mailer he had “no reason to challenge the judgment of the campaign workers,” that “they were providing [him] with valuable advice.”
Mr. Parish said that “Respondent worked with two consultants who advised him that this information was correct and a valid subject for a judicial campaign. One was a paid consultant, Aaron Park. The other was a non-paid consultant, Kirby Wells.”
Mr. Parish wrote that Mr. Wells “initially gave the campaign a synopsis of an article implicating opponent in a case that involved agreeing to give bribes. Respondent provided to the State Bar Investigator the e-mail received from Wells on this subject.”
He continued, “Both Wells and Park indicated that the campaign should use the information from the Russian situation as part of a mailer. They were both strongly in favor of using that information.”
Mr. Parish argued, “Respondent believed that since he was a neophyte in this arena and they were both heavily experienced, that their determination was valid. Respondent based final decision to use the material based on the information received and the opinions of both consultants.”
At the end of the day he forgets the most important lesson of political campaigns – it is his name on the material and therefore he is responsible for the product that his campaign puts out. It is not a defense that his campaign advisors made mistakes – the buck has to stop with the candidate.
But it is actually a good deal worse in this case. He is a deputy district attorney. He prosecutes people’s cases. In the course of prosecuting cases, he relies on police investigations and his own office’s investigators to investigate the crime and produce evidence.
But at the end of the day, he is responsible for the case that gets put on before the jury and he has to be sure that the evidence is correct and accurate. He has to be sure that he is not putting forth false and misleading arguments and that the evidence is not fabricated.
And so the defense, for someone in the position of deputy district attorney, cannot be that he failed to properly vet the material his campaign put out because that suggests that the same may occur in his cases.
The second thing Mr. Parish argued in his own defense is that he accepted “responsibility for the mailer immediately and publically by informing members of the press of the incorrect statement.”
That is not exactly true, according to the public record.
Contrary to Clinton Parish’s defense, Mr. Parish actually failed to accept immediate responsibility when the incident occurred. In fact, he attempted to stand by the allegations until he could no longer do so, at which point he pinned the blame on his staff rather than himself.
The flier attacked Dan Maguire, who was said to be “part of Arnold’s inner circle, Dan Maguire was part of Arnold’s legal team that made decisions including commuting the sentence of convicted murderer Esteban Nuñez…” Later in the flier it said, “Dan Maguire received a political appointment (never elected) and took the bench only three weeks before Arnold’s last-day Commutation of Esteban Nuñez’ sentence.”
It was easy enough to discover, as the Vanguard did, that Dan Maguire was appointed to the bench of Yolo County on October 18, 2010, while the commutation occurred at the last minute on January 2, 2011.
Given that, Mr. Parish would need solid evidence linking Judge Maguire to that decision, and he had none.
So how did he respond? He responded, in part, by suggesting that “the ads don’t claim that Maguire played a part in the reduced sentence.”
“The point is that he worked for the legal team that made that and other bad decisions,” he told the Davis Enterprise. “It really goes to show, you are a product of the offices you work for. Right or wrong, it’s the truth, and people judge me based on what I and my office have done.”
That was his immediate response – he neither took responsibility nor did he publicly inform the press of the incorrect statement.
The Sacramento Bee editorial released later in that week captures this problem, “Parish didn’t apologize for making the mistake. Instead, he sought to shift blame, telling the Bee that the campaign worker who gave him the information no longer works for the campaign. He didn’t identify the individual.”
So the historical record shows that, far from taking responsibility at the time, he was already throwing the problem on his staff of advisors.
“On Wednesday, Parish continued to defend his lowdown hit piece, although he did back off, somewhat, from an allegation that as a private attorney, Maguire somehow was involved in a case involving a bribe,” the Bee writes. “Lamely, Parish told the Bee that the connection wasn’t as close as he had been led to believe. The allegation is, in fact, false. Parish should have said so.”
In other political jobs, maybe the public can live with smear attacks that backfire. Maybe you can chalk things up to the messiness that is politics.
But the troubling thing is that this is a deputy district attorney. His job is to take the work of investigators and use it to hold people accountable for their actions, and not only is he admitting that he failed to properly scrutinize the allegations he made against Dan Maguire, he has also failed to take any responsibility for his own actions.
That is troubling. More troubling is that this seems to be getting no coverage in Tuolumne County, where he now works as district attorney. Don’t the citizens there also deserve to know the truth about a man in whom they are putting their public trust?
—David M. Greenwald reporting
[quote]And yet facing his own mistakes, he does not own up to them. Instead, he throws his campaign advisors under the bus and puts the full blame on them.[/quote]
When you get away with doing the wrong thing over and over you get to feeling you can get away with more and more. When the bar looks the other way for prosecutorial misconduct prosecutors feel what they are doing is acceptable. The same thing happens to athletes, politicians, teenagers, etc. until they go too far and the book finally gets thrown at them. Since they never had to own up to their own behavior in the past they place blame on everyone else.
[quote]The point is that he worked for the legal team that made that and other bad decisions,” he told the Davis Enterprise. “It really goes to show, you are a product of the offices you work for.[/quote]
While I find the actions of Clinton Parish in approving his campaign ads and subsequently not assuming full responsibility for their content deplorable, I feel that the above quote best exemplifies a major inadequacy of our justice system as pointed out by Themis.
Mr. Parish states that “you are a product of the offices that you work for.” In his case, I could not agree more. Mr. Parish is a product of a system that has rationalized and institutionalized lying as an appropriate mechanism for winning. This is seem in the legality of police lying to suspects to obtain a confession.
It is seen in not sanctioning prosecutors for lying or hiding evidence. It is seen in judges not allowing all relevant evidence to be presented to a jury or to use instruction as a means to influence a jury’s decision.
It would seem that lying or at least not allowing the full truth to be presented is seen as an acceptable technique throughout the enforcement and prosecutorial side of our judicial system. I suspect that this may have evolved over time based on the idea that “the police and prosecutors” are “the good guys”.
A major problem with this approach is that it sacrifices the idea on which our judicial system hinges, that
the accused is innocent until proven guilty.
And as, he himself fully admits, Mr. Parish is indeed a product of the offices in which he has worked.
I only hope that the citizens of Tuolumne County discover the nature of the man they have hired before he has the opportunity to unjustly destroy someone’s life as he attempted to do with the career of
Judge Maguire.
One brief additional comment.
For those that will jump me for bias, nowhere did I say that I approve of lying on the part of the defendant or their counsel. I do not approve of lying under any circumstances applicable to the law.
I however do hold those who would claim to represent, protect and defend the public to a higher standard.This is the moral high ground they have claimed for themselves. As such, they need to exemplify moral behavior in all circumstances.
Beautifully and succinctly written medwoman!
Now let’s hope the State Bar Association can begin to reclaim some of their completely missing credibility by holding Parish (and others like him) responsible for his actions with more than a slap on the wrist.
Themis: You are exactly right. When you said, “When the bar looks the other way for prosecutorial misconduct, prosecutors feel what they are doing is acceptable. The same thing happens to athletes, politicians, teenagers, etc. until they go too far and the book finally gets thrown at them.”
The state bar has not fulfilled its responsibility when it allows harmful prosecutorial misconduct to go unpunished. This kind of behavior can lead to wrongful convictions. Wrongful convictions damages families and leaves the real criminals at large.
David, you are doing a good job to keep the people of Yolo County educated as to what goes on in the court system here. The people have to speak up in order to fix our legal system.
I think Themis and medwoman have hit it right on the money. After reading about Clinton Parish and your articles on the Ajay Dev case one can see that the problems Parish created were done because that is business as usual at the DA’s office.
“Mr. Parish states that ‘you are a product of the offices that you work for.”. In his case, I could not agree more. Mr. Parish is a product of a system that has rationalized and institutionalized lying as an appropriate mechanism for winning….”
I’m afraid, medwoman, that this is like calling you “a product of the society in which you live” (as a nasty observation, of course). Nothing personal, but most of the things you despise about our justice system are acceptable practices in your own democracy unless they’re abused (much like any other rules on which our society has agreed).
Our legal process in no way “has rationalized and institutionalized lying as an appropriate mechanism for winning”–whether by the prosecutors or the defense or judicial representatives.
I certainly appreciate the hopes you’ve expressed before for a more humane, non-adversarial process of investigation, arrest, prosecution, judgment and punishment. But, we’re not there yet, and our laws–the ones that law enforcement, the prosecutors and the courts are obligated to follow–reflect that. (I’d welcome any recommendation of a system that’s operating better in a society as large as ours.)
In any case, Clinton Parish needs to be judged on his own actions that are under investigation, not by the real or imagined sins of those with whom he’s associated or worked with in the past (or with people’s opinions about how he did his job or how much we wish our county’s system was better).
I’m curious what we’d be saying in the Vanguard if someone other than Parish was being prejudged with all of these irrelevant accusations, prejudicial comments, etc. If we knew Parish only by his campaign actions (and not been reflecting on how much we already disliked him), would the discussion have taken this turn?
I find myself agreeing with David the hypocrisy factor, but for a different reason. Given the recent history of our political campaigns, why is anyone the least bit concerned about punishing Parish’s comparatively minor transgression now that he’s been run out of town and lost “his dignity, his election, and ultimately his job”?
JustSaying
[quote]I’m curious what we’d be saying in the Vanguard if someone other than Parish was being prejudged with all of these irrelevant accusations, prejudicial comments, etc. If we knew Parish only by his campaign actions (and not been reflecting on how much we already disliked him), would the discussion have taken this turn?
[/quote]
I can only speak for myself, and not for anyone else on the Vanguard. I can tell you that I would be saying exactly the same thing since I had basically no knowledge of Mr. Parish prior to his challenge to Judge Macquire. My sole way of judging him has been on the basis of his own campaigns and his own statements.
I was quoting Mr. Parish when I wrote about “being a product of your own office”. I do not actually agree entirely with that philosophy. While our environment certainly influences each of us, it is not the entirety of our destiny. We are capable as humans of transcending adverse situations if we choose. We do have individual as well as cultural capability to define our own moral values. It is this area in which I feel that
Mr. Clinton fell short and demonstrated himself unfit to be a judge. I have no desire whatsoever to see him punished. I simply feel that he is not suited to the postion of either prosecutor or judge and should seek alternative employment based on his inability to meet his own stated standards of behavior.
“Unfortunately for Mr. Parish, he remains his own worst enemy.”
This has always been true for clinton parish, who is nothing more than a pompous, unethical, self-righteous buffoon, and above all a hypocrite. A hypocrite in his catholic faith, one who is fervently anti-abortion but passionately pro-death penalty. A hypocrite in his personal life, one who gleefully conspires against those whom he pretends to befriend but cries foul when his own underhanded schemes are used against him. And a hypocrite in his profession, one who is an advocate for accountability for everyone except for himself.