BOR Interview With Rosemary Lehmberg

by: Phillip Martin, Progress Texas

Wed Apr 02, 2008 at 10:10 AM CDT

What separates you from Mindy Montford? Why are you the better choice for Travis County voters?

Clearly, my experience separates me, and the breadth of my experience. I've tried cases and directed every major division in our office, so I am deep in trial experience. I have worked for the last 10 years running the day to day operations of the office, and so I have experience running a large law office - which we are now. That means I have budget and personnel and information services experience that my opponent does not have. I have worked on many community based initiatives throughout my career, primarily when I was the director of the Family Justice Division.

Most important against this particular opponent, I have directed the Public Integrity Unit (PIU) and later, as first assistant, oversaw the PIU. I'm free of influence of the Public Integrity Unit. My opponent has been funded by many people who seek to influence legislation, and unlike her I have independent judgment and know how to exercise independence in my work.

Can you describe briefly what the Public Integrity Unit does, and some things you did during your time as its Director?

The duty and responsibility of the Travis County DA is unique because the center of state government is in our county. All prosecutors have jurisdiction and venue over crimes that occur in the county, and our duty and responsibility includes the crimes related to state government. The PIU does everything from workers compensation fraud to motor fuel tax fraud to insurance fraud. We've undertaken a whole new prosecution in the vice tax area.

I talk about being the guardian of the Capitol, and what I mean is that there is always a possibility of abuse of power through the money that is used to try to influence legislation. By that I mean lobby, and the like, and if money is incorrectly accepted by the Members of the Legislature. It is our job to look at all of those allegations that are made. Some of them are unfounded, some of them are made by political opponents who have a bone to pick, and some are true criminal cases.

We have prosecuted Democrats and Republicans over the years, and what happens in that is the people who abuse power are the ones who have the power. When Democrats were in power, more of them were accused of - in some way - misusing money and power. More recently, there have been Republicans. You have to look at that aspect and that history of that unit to understand they have not been partisan prosecutions - they have been prosecutions of those who abused their power. We're most famous for the Delay case, with the alleged use of corporate money in the November 2002 elections, which led to the Colyandro, TRM-PAC, Tom Delay, TAB, etc. The upshot of that was that the alleged use of corporate money was alleged to have elected a certain set of individuals.

Whoever is the head of the Public Integrity Unit must be able to look at those and determine what is right free of the influence of who is part of those investigations.

Montford has - and correct me if I'm wrong - won the endorsement of all the major law enforcement groups in Travis County. Can you speak to why the law enforcement groups would choose Montford over you?

I've worked with law enforcement individuals up and down the lines. I've got support from the members, just not the political action committee. And that's okay, because the District Attorney has to be independent of everyone. I intend if elected to work closely with law enforcement, but we do have to be independent of everyone.

I think - and I can only say what I've heard - which is that law enforcement wants tougher enforcement of the drug laws. What I've heard them say doesn't have much to do with community-based initiatives, or even too much in terms of public safety in terms of violent crime, which are both essential components of the work of a District Attorney.

Law enforcement officers have worked in the courts more recently, working directly with patrol officers and detectives. And that's a familiarity thing for them. The juries are more prone to be lenient on drug cases and want drug users to get into rehab, rather than be incarcerated. In that way, there is a disconnection between what the law enforcement wants and what the people want. The quirky part, of course, is that the law enforcement often responds to complaints in the community...so the jury itself is exhibiting a disconnection, too. Many people just want drug users off their street, which is why they call law enforcement, but then once they're off the street, they don't necessarily want them to go to jail.

A District Attorney needs to be responsive to all aspects - the community-based needs, and the best approach to public safety. And that can't happen unless you can approach these complex problems from a point of independence.

Check below the fold for the rest of the interview.

Community justice, restorative justice - adds to the prosecutor the traditional role being out in the community and working with the community to solve problems. The idea is to invest the community in its own safety and keeping itself safe, rather than it just being the prosecutor's responsibility to go in there, prosecute a crime, and punish.

We analyze what the crime problems are, and come up with the best strategies for that specific community to solve them.

Can you give an example of this Community Justice model?

Absolutely. For example, we had some problems in the northeast area of Austin, in the St. John's area near I-35. We had problems with prostitution, so we worked with the police officers and law enforcement in that area and worked with the citizens in the community to identify the problem and strategize how to work with the problem.

The 7-11 that's right there, for example - we went in and talked to that owner about nuisance abatement because you have the capacity to sue the owner if they are not doing anything to mitigate or remediate the crime problem.

Our Community Justice groups will look at lighting in the community; we'll look at the panhandling problem. The prosecutor is out meeting in the community with citizens and law enforcement to try and rid the area of quality of life problems and then come in later and renew the area with social services and preventative after-care for drug offenders, and the like. Those are the kinds of initiatives the community justice program works on.

Gary Cobb and I have worked on expanding that. We want to do more to start developing some strategies for crime prevention, but also to work on alternatives if people do get arrested instead of running them through the criminal justice system. For example, expanding drug courts and making them more successful.

Those are real successful things, and we need to continue to expand the drug court capacity. And I think Gary agrees with me that some of our problems, like some of the trust that has developed over officer-involved cases, and for sure the youthful-drug offender are ripe for community based initiatives and problem solving.

One of the legacies of Ronnie Earle's time there is how he created and expanded the office and created new divisions. Do you think there's some areas of "community justice" that need improving, that the Travis County DA's office needs to focus on more going forward?

Certainly, not only expanding drug courts but seeking new alternatives to divert cases out of the drug system or away from incarceration.

I am interested in expanding our prosecution of crimes committed online, money scams, child solicitation cases. We don't have a lot of child solicitation cases online, but we continue to work on those. We need to work on identity theft, and vigorous prosecution of crimes committed online. I don't think we need a special unit on that yet, but it may be necessary in the future, should the numbers reach a threshold where it is necessary.

I'm personally interested in stepping up our environmental prosecution. We have one lawyer who works with that, and attend a task force where we work with TCEQ on those issues. Most of those go to the County Attorney's office for civil fines. We occasionally prosecute some large cases for dumping. I would like to increase our presence in that arena because it's something I'm interested in. Right now, it's primarily a resource issue but its one important enough to our future that we need to be looking to stepping up our efforts on environmental prosecution.

I want to work immediately with the new police Chief and his staff on use of force cases by police officers. That has been a truly complex area for the DA's office and the community as a whole. Two of our prosecutors just went to a training with the APD. We're participating in that, but we need to do a lot of work with the community on that issue. There's a lot that needs to be done, and I believe my extensive experience across all the areas of the community is what makes me immediately qualified to serve as District Attorney.