[I just made an announcement on Facebook, so while I’d planned to spend a few hours today polishing my campaign announcement, I’ll just go ahead and reproduce that statement here. More posts, detailing my qualifications, my plans, and why I think that Tony Rackauckas needs to be replaced, will be forthcoming in the days and weeks ahead. For now — here it goes. You’ll pardon me, I hope, but anonymous comments on this post will be trashed. Anyone who wants to challenge me in comments under their own name — don’t worry, unlike some people it’s not like I can retaliate against you — is welcome to do so. — GAD]
Greg Diamond, not all THAT many years ago.
I just made my announcement this morning to Los Amigos and have now been interviewed by Martin Wisckol of the Orange County Register, so the cat is apparently out of the bag: I will be running against Tony Rackauckas — who hasn’t had a challenger since 2002 — for Orange County District Attorney. I’m prompted to do so in part because apparently not one other attorney in our county of over 3,000,000 Californians is willing to take him on — or, if they are, they’ve waited too long to stave off my campaign. And DA Rackauckas desperately needs an opponent. I deeply want to vote against him myself — but that requires that another name be on the ballot!
Someone needs to make the case for better government. I’m qualified, and I’m humble enough NOT to take on a high-profile murder/manslaughter trial myself when I’m supervising an office full of highly qualified Deputy DAs are available to do it, so it turns out that it will have to be me.
Fair notice to all of my wealthy attorney (and in some cases academic or other) friends: I’m going to be hitting you up for donations this week and next. By March 7, I’ll need $30,000 in hand if I am to file a ballot statement in the Voter Guide, in which I’ll make a pitch for a smart and principled and scientifically validated approach to prosecution and punishment. I would be honored to give you the chance to live through me vicariously for the next few months, so look for my e-mails and reply quicky. (As I just made this decision last Friday, a website and a PayPal link are … let’s say “still under development.”) Until then, I’m not soliciting donations wholesale — though, if you just can’t wait to donate, you’re welcome to contact me first!
You are welcome to share this post as widely as you wish. Win or lose, I’ll make an aggressive case against corruption — that alone will help to shake things up in OC. I’m eager to begin. I hope that you’re eager to join me.
Way to throw down and lead, Greg. This is an important office with significant recent controversy . . . It would be an absolute mockery of democracy if T-Rack ran unopposed.
We deserve to hear about the issues and have the responsibility to make an informed choice. Thanks for enabling that freedom.
Great! I will have someone to vote for (other than ‘none of the above’).
Don’t be too suprised when you win. Best of luck.
Thank you, Jane!
As I told a reporter earlier today: if everyone who doesn’t like Tony Rackauckas votes for me — I may have said “hates,” but that would be unfair — then I will win.
I expect that there will be lots of mailers calling me all sorts of terrible names for my positions — which strike me as moderate ones — against excessive use of force and widespread corruption and fraud. I sort of look forward to that — I can collect them from people and redistribute them in the parts of the county where we need to beef up liberal/progressive turnout.
(One good thing about this is that I’ll probably get some of his money put into ads in the OC Register. Maybe they can rehire some reporters! See — I’m creating jobs!)
it is too bad I am not allowed to comment but that is a good start to your DA campaign, filter out who you will take comments from.
I don’t want one-off comments — and in your case I know who you are. You — like skally and a few others — are free to comment. If you start making “drive-by” accusations in the way that many of the people who use one-time-only disposable IP Addresses do, then I’ll ask that you make them under your own name if you want them to be seen.
I think that that approach is thoughtful, prudent, and fair to both you and the process — and in that sense, you’re right: it IS a good start to my campaign.
Give me your best shot when you’re ready. In doing that, “thoughtful, prudent, and fair” would suit you well also.
ok, I will tell my girlfriend to not post on the DA race since we both use this moniker. it will only be from me on this subject. heck, I applaud you for running, never an easy task and just asking for it from anyone who disagrees with you. fortunately most on this blog will agree with you.
If this is an actual, credible campaign, backed with actual effort and resources and all of the stuff that your last – whatever the hell that was – lacked utterly, then even I will support it.
That’ good news, Nipsey, because he will need your help – if there’s gonna be “resources.”
My last campaign accomplished its reasonable goals — among those being not to draw too much fire from my opponent into North County. (That worked to the benefit of my Assembly candidate, who I believe was not your candidate.) I was among the most successful State Senate challengers — and beforehand pretty much no one thought that I could reach 45%.
I’ll make this as serious a challenge as my resources allow. One big inflection point is whether I can raise the money for a ballot statement, which will be tough. The ballot statement cannot mention my opponent, which will make it less fun and effective than it might otherwise be, but as planned:
* it WILL focus both on fighting corruption within the county
* it WILL focus on the need for credible and independent investigations of potential excessive use of government force
* it WILL argue for less emphasis on victimless crimes and more focus on crimes including domestic abuse, elder abuse, and both public and private fraud, and
* it WILL focus on using scientific data to assess and consider expanded use of alternative sentencing, home detention, deferred sentencing
* and more along those lines. It will be persuasive — and it WILL help shape debate.
The question for you and your friends, at this point, is whether you’d like to see a 400-word document along those lines in the hands of 1.4 million voters, translated into the various languages of Orange County, by mid-Spring. My suspicion is that seeing something like that is worth $30,000 to you and your friends who could afford up to $1,900 a pop — regardless of whether I spent the subsequent three months campaigning personally every day or just engaging in an electronic “air war” via internet.
But we can talk in person — I realize that I may have to be blindfolded for that, given that I honestly don’t know who you are — about particulars. I think that you’ll like 80% of my candidacy — and 80% of $1900 is $1520.
How will you enforce California’s Medical Marijuana Laws? Will you apply them fairly or use them to make Millions like Mr.Racaukus? His office does not support or acknowledge current California Laws…
I will definitely not use them to make millions.
At a minimum, I will enforce them to allow maximum ability for citizens to take advantage of MMJ laws without inviting a lawsuit against the county. I would personally want to go further than that, but I think I’d need a consensus of other officials if the county were to be part of a challenge against those restrictions. My personal support of MMJ — through sources that satisfy the requirements of Prop 215 — is strong. However, I’ll need to get advice from groups including Ethan Nadelman’s Drug Policy group and associations of DAs, as to what steps I can take as a DA that comport with my fiduciary responsibility to the county.
I’m also in favor of the “Regulate Marijuana Like Wine” initiatives, along the lines of the one in Colorado, that would make the need for MMJ among adults moot. We could use the revenue and the space being taken up by people who are currently incarcerated and who shouldn’t be. (But I can’t just do that on my own as DA either.)
That answer may not totally satisfy you — but it will be better than the incumbents!
ok you long winded bore you have my vote.
Thank you?
no prob dude
As one who attended four days of the Kelly Thomas trial and witnessed Tony Rackauckas bore the court with long pauses between sentences, lacking conviction in his statements, failure to object to the defense attorneys when appropriate, etc. and just flat out deliberately blowing this high profile case, anyone but Tony R should be the DA of Orange County. No DA can be that illiterate, unless they chose to be.
You go Greg! Best wishes to you. Btw, I am not an OC resident or else you’d get my vote…
Thank you, Ron! I didn’t get a chance to view the trial in person. My sense is that for the most part he blew the trial before it even began. (I upset a lot of friends by predicting no conviction — except for, I think it should have been, of both officers for excessive force, with which Ramos wasn’t even charged.)
You’ll notice that in his opening statement, in asking “what happened that night,” he started out with Ramos approaching Kelly. That’s not where it started. It started with a call from the Slidebar to the FPD. If there was a tacit (or explicit) arrangement by which businesses in that area could call police to roust homeless from the area because it was “bad for business,” then that was the place to start the story — not necessarily with the jury, but certainly with an investigation — because such an illegal arrangement could undermine the legitimacy of Ramos’s use of force.
If there was no such arrangement, then Ramos’s approaching Kelly was the first act that mattered. But, if such an arrangement existed between the Slidebar and Ramos and his partner alone, then starting there was the way to get him on murder or manslaughter, much more so that his later use of latex gloves and a threat to attempt to intimidate Kelly into compliance. If such an arrangement existed, but was with the FPD more broadly, so that Ramos was seriously following FPD policy, then it may not have been appropriate to charge Ramos with either more serious crime — but some people within the FPD may have been proper defendants.
I wonder if Rackauckas knows whether there was such an arrangement. I wonder if it was thoroughly investigated by people with no ties to the FPD. I’d certainly have wanted to know that fact, in his shoes. But, then, I’d have wanted a conviction enough to let one of the courtroom prosecutors take the case rather than doing it myself — inviting speculation over whether the DA “took a dive.”
Greg! Yeah! Thanks for taking this on. Where do I sign up as a volunteer?
I’ll have a web page up and will address volunteers then.
Between now and March 7, it’s about all fundraising and posting stories on the race that may interest donors and voters (and other readers.)
*How do we split our vote? Yikes….the Great Greg is doing the deal….pretty impressive
we must say.
I have a solution, Ron: if you two send me $3800, I won’t begrudge your voting for Rackauckas. Seems fair, right? 😉
*That seems fair, but we still have some outstanding medical bills……so we will have to get back to you on that.
Good point. You are relieved of responsibility until my reelection campaign!
So true GD, especially the importance of starting with the call from Slidebar. Also, since T-Rax and company said it took nearly three months to complete their investigation because they interviewed over 100 witnesses, I could help but wonder why NOT ONE of those witnesses were brought in to testify.
Bottom line, IMO, Tony Rauckaukas and the complacent leaders of Fullerton PD are accessories to murder!
This is where I show my moderate tendencies, Ron, though I don’t think that they should alarm you: I don’t think that this was a murder case. It’s not that I am opposed in principle to the idea that it was murder; that’s just how I read the facts and the applicable law.
I think that it was a viable manslaughter case — non-lawyers may not worry much about the difference, but it’s very important to the judicial and penal systems — but even that was going to be hard because (as happened) the officers would be able to argue that they were just carrying out FPD policy. (If Rackauckas really wanted a conviction, disproving that had to be the heart of the case — and while it was doable with Cicinelli it was going to be a hard slog with Ramos. I know that he did some work there, but not enough.) In criminal court, it was most clearly an excessive force case — and the other charges helped mask that.
In civil court, it is a wrongful death case against both the officers and the city of Fullerton — each of which gains from deferring blame onto the other — and that is where “justice” was always going to be done in this one. When I spoke to Ron Thomas at the rally outside of the FPD the weekend after the verdict, he agreed with this: it’s the civil case where the most permanent and effective reform to policing procedures can be made. He also pointed out to me that he’s not seeking monetary damages, but a court order (I believe with continued monitoring) to ensure reform. (He could still get damages under the “all other appropriate relief” part of his prayer, but his position is that it’s not his goal.)
People can think what they will of Ron Thomas — but that’s exactly the right position for a reformer to take in this situation, and I admire his stance regarding his choice of judicial remedies.
The Lil Engine that Could!! Give ’em hell Diamond!
Thanks, Paul. I so rarely get called “Lil”!
Good luck Diamond, can’t make a dollar donation, but I can sign your nomination papers.
Thanks, cook. If I have them and run into you in SA, I’ll take you up on that. (I only need 40, so that’s the least of my worries.)
Hey! – maybe your old buds at the former FFFF will support you …… and then again, maybe not …….
Up to them! I’d welcome their support. We disagree in some areas, but we agree on some important things — mostly government corruption and excessive use of force.
I approve your effort Greg.
For the entirety of this DA’s tenure, I’ve witnessed his police community act with criminal impunity and with the confidence of knowing that they would not be held to account.
Change is coming.
Go Tony R WIN AND WIN WITH LEAVING NO CHANCE OF DIAMOND TO GET EVEN CLOSE .
jajaja … T-Rack’s got the Grating Juan … if the old gusano can figure out how to get to the polling place…
Now do you see why I wanted to close the other comments section?
Greg How can a guy help you win this thing? I sir, might be a great help if you would listen to me on a side-bar (off record). Where is your contact info?
You can write me at diamondforda at gmail dot com. What I specifically ask of supporters (besides donations for those that can offer them) will come out ASAP.
What is your take on the DA petitioning the OC supervisors, then going city by city to pass ordinances against registered citizens from being with their families in public places like beaches and parks? When There is no history of any registrant re-offending in an OC park or beach. How is it the DA’s job to do such a thing?
The harsh scrutiny these people are under via the sheriff’s department and other restrains dictates that we already have a system that works because of those professionals like that of probation and the sheriff’s department. How can the registrant’s position as a parent be so easily violated? There were two separate panels of judges that ruled against the ban yet the DA still refuses to respect their rendered decision and appeals it to The California state Supreme Court.
The sham of it was to have the Sheriff’s office give out waivers. Why would a law enforcement agency give registered former sex offenders waivers to break the law? It’s remiss of their position. Even the sheriff said (on record) that she couldn’t see why she ever would give a waiver. I understand emotion is tied to this issue but common (not so common) sense states no history of a problem and those systems in place are working so why fix something not broken? I know registered sex offenders are the new whipping boy for votes, but where are we in pre-1945 Germany?
Review my presentation before the OC Supervisors under public comments for 05-08-12 (I shook down the house). Oh, note at the end of the video that Supervisor Nelson blasted lies about me and my case. I know it’s an old lawyer argument thing…if you can’t beat the argument defame the person making it. What helped him on that was his staff giving him the wrong file (not mine). Chairman John Moorlach emailed me stating there is nothing he could do and that he cannot remove it from the public record regardless of the false information from Nelson. I hope you can fix all of the OC Tony-mess!
http://ocgov.granicus.com/ViewPublisher.php?view_id=4
The ordinances were pretty clearly unconstitutional from the start; the benefit from them was political — including overthrowing the Irvine City Council. (Yes, Racky apologized for that with robocalls — too little, too late.) I wouldn’t have proposed such an ordinance. The problem was that it treated sex-offense registrants who were not pedophiles as if they were a danger to children, which is ignorant.
It’s not the DA’s job to do such a thing. The DA should be the guardian of the federal and state constitutions, as well as state laws and local ordinances. Playing to the public by pushing unconstitutional measures is disgusting. Some restrictions on the sex offenders may be appropriate — I’d look to the social scientific and criminal justice literature to determine which ones — but a list so overinclusive that it includes those cited for public urination doesn’t warrant that sort of wholesale deprivation of rights.