Jackie Lacey rode into the Los Angeles County District Attorney's Office on the coattails of her boss. In three scandal-free terms, Steve Cooley maintained his image as a tough prosecutor with a streak of moderation. His endorsement assured voters that Lacey, his chief deputy, could be trusted to keep it up.
Lacey clung tightly to Cooley's record during the campaign. At one debate (which, full disclosure, was moderated by this writer), she was asked to describe her biggest disagreement with her boss. She couldn't name one and said that any differences they may have had ought to remain private.
The strategy worked: Lacey coasted to a 10-point win last week. When she is sworn in next month, she will become the county's first nonwhite DA, and its first female one.
Any other changes will be much harder to discern. According to Cooley, so little will change that Lacey won't even bother with the formality of a transition team. "Her transition will be the time it takes her to walk from the chief deputy's office to the DA's office," adds former DA Robert Philibosian. "Five minutes. She's done."
An L.A. native, Lacey, 55, joined the DA's office in 1986. In her early career, she handled the typical range of cases, including one death row prosecution. She got to know Cooley in the '90s, when both worked in the San Fernando branch. When Cooley was elected, he made her a part of the administration.
Lacey has been tied to Cooley for so long — 12 years — that her own personality remains a bit of a mystery. When Cooley leaves the office for the last time, Lacey will finally have to step out from his shadow.
One of her first responsibilities will be to select an executive team. Many prosecutors expect her to promote several women from middle management to the DA's executive suite. Women now make up a majority of the office's frontline prosecutors. But under Cooley, the top deputies tended to be older, white men. (Lacey, who became chief deputy in 2011, was the major exception.) Now, many men in the top management tier have reached retirement age, and several women are well positioned to move up, including Pam Booth, director of the DA's central operations bureau. She's considered a top contender for the job of Lacey's chief deputy.
In an interview, Lacey declined to get into specifics about her leadership team but said she hoped to firm things up soon. Asked whether it was important to her to see more women in the top ranks of the office, she demurred.
"I have a wide variety of choices, among people who are very talented, both men and women," she says.
While any policy changes are likely to be mild and gradual, Lacey is a moderate Democrat, while Cooley is a moderate Republican. Though Cooley has been adamant that the DA's office is above politics, Lacey should be slightly more receptive to entreaties from Democratic interests.
During the campaign, she came out in favor of giving driver's licenses to illegal immigrants — though she said she would not change how the DA's office prosecutes undocumented drivers. She also said she would reestablish the DA's Environmental Crimes Unit, which Cooley had shut down. That helped win the backing of the League of Conservation Voters and the Sierra Club. However, now that she has been elected, setting up the unit does not appear to be a high priority. In the interview, Lacey referred only to "expanding" the unit, which is now responsible for environmental cases.
Another difference is Lacey's leadership style. Her supporters say her style is more "collaborative" than Cooley's. (Her opponent, Deputy DA Alan Jackson, had a harsher word for it: "bureaucratic.")
"She's a real consensus builder," Booth says. "She listens to what people have to say and knows how to balance that with what the needs of the office are."
As chief deputy, Lacey had Cooley's ear, making her the person prosecutors came to when they wanted him to do something. But as DA, she'll be the one who has to say no — both inside the office and out. "The real difference will be the mental shift from giving counsel and advice to being personally responsible for decisions," says former DA Ira Reiner. "When stuff happens, and it does, she's going to be getting the call, not Steve."
The first major item on her desk will be realignment — the state's plan to reduce prison overcrowding by transferring inmates to county custody. Sheriff Lee Baca had been pushing Cooley to agree to broader pretrial release of jail inmates in order to reduce the jail population. Cooley had been pushing back, and Lacey plans to continue to push.
"The pretrial release stuff is problematic," Lacey says. "I've been briefed, and I'm ready to participate intelligently in those discussions."
She will also have to deal with the passage of Proposition 36, which modified the state's three-strikes law so that only those convicted of violent crimes face life in prison. Though Cooley adopted a similar policy in 2000, prisoners sentenced before then are expected to petition the courts for resentencing.
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Cooley "Scandal Free"? Ask the Bell Police about Cooley's good buddy Randy Adams who conspired to loot the city with Robert Rizzo and yet was able to avoid prosecution thanks to "Honest" Steve Cooley. That fat old fuck will NOT be misses - and by fat old fuck I DON'T mean Rizzo.
As the LA Times pointed out several months ago, during Cooley's tenure, the Los Angeles area has become the second most corrupt part of the nation. The DA's office has watched the City of Los Angeles be fleeced of billions of dollars by corrupt developers. It allowed the City of LA to run a world wide Bait and Switch Scam about the Hollywood Sign's being in danger of demolition so that the city could pay off a Chicago developer $12.5 M for 140 acres that had nothing to do with the Hollywood Sign. It watched as the LAFD provide false data about its response times and cut another $200 M from the LAFD thereby increasing response times and resulting in more NEEDLESS DEATHS.
LA City Hall has become a Temple of Crimogenics -- thanks in large part to Cooley and Lacey. The crooks are still in charge and laughing all the way to the bank. Look at the current LA Times article about the horrible First Responder times to the Hills -- due to criminal fraud at City Hall which took place with Cooley's and Lacey's blessings.
