By David M. Greenwald
Executive Editor
I wanted to address a few thoughts on the DA’s race. We will of course have a full story on the Enterprise endorsement of Jeff Reisig later in the week, but here are some of my thoughts.
I do want to address a couple of key points at the start. The Enterprise view is “ultimately, you have one main job… the DA’s main job is to keep the county safe.”
I would argue that is in fact debatable. Safety is a job for law enforcement, but the DA’s job is to ensure that justice is done. They have an oversight role over law enforcement.
They also argue, “Experience makes Reisig the right choice.”
But what if it is bad experience, or at least experience doing things the wrong way?
The editorial duly and rightly notes that on “the high-profile, horrifying cases” Reisig’s office has been successful.
But have they been? For instance, there are a lot of questions surrounding both the prosecution in the Halloween Homicide Case and the Greg Zielesch conviction in the Andy Stevens murder, both prosecuted by Reisig himself. Not to mention the overturning of the conviction of Justin Gonzalez in the more recent Casa Del Sol killing—also, by the way, prosecuted by Reisig.
Tia Will, a Vanguard board member and retired OBGYN, has serious questions about the conviction of Samantha Green for the killing of her baby; she was sentenced to a much longer term than Frank Rees was.
Will argued that Green certainly made the decision to take the baby to the slough, “but it is clear that she was suffering from a number of ailments including 
methamphetamine psychosis.”
Public Defender Tracie Olson called the jury verdict “the most unfounded… that I’ve seen. Voluntary manslaughter is the correct decision.”
There is certainly a question of justice in going tough on Green and certainly a question of equity by going lighter on Rees.
Whether or not the Enterprise is right or wrong about their endorsement, I disagree with their claim that the DA has one job, to keep the county safe—I think they have an OBLIGATION to do justice.
I want to address some of Chief Deputy DA Jonathan Raven’s comments on Nextdoor.
This is the comment he wrote about Maria Grijalva and Soros.
He wrote: “A woman named Maria Grijalva runs the PAC discussed above. She has no love for Reisig. I’m not saying she should or should not. Just stating a fact. Soros money gets into these campaigns but she funds her pac. Until recently she was Cynthia’s co campaign manager.”
First of all, Maria Grijalva has never been Cynthia Rodriguez’s campaign manager. Dillan Horton told Robert Hansen of the Vanguard that as well.
But second, why bring up Soros money? There is no evidence that I have seen that Soros gave money to either Dean Johansson in 2018 or Cynthia Rodriguez in 2022. Ironically he gave Noah Phillips about $400,000 in Sacramento in 2018 and he still lost handily, while Johansson probably would have defeated Reisig had he received even a fraction of that money.
Finally, in my column on Saturday my headline was “If You Analyze the Support For Reisig, Much of It is Coming From His Employees and Law Enforcement.”
Keyword there was “much”—not “all,” not “most,” but much. Admittedly that’s a nebulous term, but then again, we don’t have a poll or anything to give us more precise metrics. One of my measures was to look at letters to the editor. Let’s say there were 10 of 30 who were either law enforcement or current or former DA employees—that seems like a pretty high percentage to me.
Is that a bad thing?
Depends on who you are.
I made this point both at the beginning and the end of the article.
“Some of you will argue that there is nothing wrong with that, that the people who work with Reisig every day support him. Others of you will see it more skeptically, wondering how deep into the community the support for Reisig goes and questioning whether a cozy relationship between the DA and law enforcement itself represents a conflict,” I wrote, adding, “I’m not here to weigh in on that point. That is a decision that every voter must make for themselves.”
I also point out, “Reisig does not shy away from the relationship.”
I should add, he takes pride in it.
Reisig at the forum pointed out, “I am the chief law enforcement officer. That means every single day, my job is to work in collaboration with the law enforcement officers around the county. Imagine if I had a terrible relationship or if I pronounced on day one, I’m going prosecute every one of you, it’s not going to go very well, i.e. San Francisco, Los Angeles.”
He added, “I have very strong relationships with police officers.”
What’s wrong with that? It depends on your perspective. If you believe that the only job of the DA is to keep the county safe, then perhaps you see nothing wrong with that. If you believe that the DA is actually there to do justice and provide oversight to law enforcement officers, then maybe you question the ability of a DA who is too close to law enforcement to be objective.
As I conclude: “The voters can decide for themselves if that’s a good thing or bad thing.”
Not everyone agrees on this stuff, which is why we have these debates.
As the Enterprise put it fairly well: “Nationally, statewide and locally, the idea of how ‘progressive’ a DA is, and what ‘progressive’ even means, has become the main point of debate.”
They however conclude: “While we regard that as an important part of the big-picture conversation on crime and punishment, ultimately, we still believe the most important attribute in a DA is an effectiveness in prosecuting criminals…”
