Torres—a Liar—Is Unfit for Office of Los Angeles City Attorney

Tuesday, May 24, 2022

Page 8

EDITORIAL

Torres—a Liar—Is Unfit for Office of Los Angeles City Attorney

Tucked in Sunday’s edition of the Los Angeles Times was an 8½ x 11-inch card reading:

HAT WOULD INESCAPABLY BE communicated to anyone seeing that ad, who didn’t have knowledge to the contrary, is that Marina Torres is a federal prosecutor.

It happens that she’s not. Torres is a lawyer in part-time private practice.

She used to be an assistant United States attorney; she isn’t now.

The representation is not ambiguous. There’s no wiggle-room.

It’s a lie.

And it cannot be dismissed as a lie of an inconsequential nature. “FEDERAL CORRUPTION PROSECUTOR” grabs attention, excites emotions. The impression is generated that Torres is currently a champion of the public’s interests, putting crooked politicians behind bars. A truthful statement that she’s presently a civil practitioner cannot be imagined to have the same impact.

T’S TRUE THAT “Federal Corruption Prosecutor” is her ballot title. That designation, to the discredit of her opponents, was not challenged. And if had been challenged in a writ proceeding, Torres might have been able to get by with it—though not legitimately—at least to the extent of calling herself a “Federal Prosecutor.”

That’s because Elections Code §13107(a)(3) allows ballot designations comprised of “[n]o more than three words designating either the current principal professions, vocations, or occupations of the candidate, or the principal professions, vocations, or occupations of the candidate during the calendar year immediately preceding the filing of nomination documents.”

Torres had been a federal prosecutor—though it does not appear that she handled corruption cases—during 2021. A judge might conclude that “Federal Prosecutor” would therefore be a proper designation. However, a judge might so decide if that judge were so sloppy in decision-making as to spurn guidance in interpreting §13107(a)(3) provided by Code of Regulations §20714(d), which says:

“If the candidate is engaged in a profession, vocation or occupation at the time he or she files his or her nomination documents, the candidate’s proposed ballot designation is entitled to consist of the candidate’s current principal professions, vocations and occupations. In the event the candidate does not have a current principal profession, vocation or occupation at the time he or she files his or her nomination documents, the candidate may use a ballot designation consisting of his or her principal professions, vocations or occupations, which the candidate was principally engaged in during the calendar year immediately preceding the filing of the candidate’s nomination papers.”

HE PROSPECT THAT A JUDGE might fail to pay heed to the regulation is seen from the fact that Los Angeles Superior Court Judge James Chalfant did just that. He allowed former Deputy District Attorney Georgia Huerta to be labeled on the June 7 ballot as “Deputy District Attorney,” thus misinforming voters. The obvious purpose of §13107(a)(3) is as interpreted by the Office of Secretary of State in promulgating its regulations on elections: to enable someone who is out of work to have a ballot designation based on the nature of recent employment. Hureta has a current profession—she’s an attorney on active status—and Chalfant made an asinine call in allowing her to falsely represent herself on the ballot as a prosecutor in the D.A.’s Office.

(The ruling also defies §13107(e)(1)’s command that a proposed designation be bumped if “[i]t would mislead the voter.” Telling voters that Huerta is a “Deputy District Attorney” when she isn’t—yet could legitimately be labeled an “Attorney” or by some such similar designation, based on her active status in the State Bar—marks a judicially condoned bamboozling of voters.)

Neither the mere possibility that a judge would have permitted Torres to be characterized on the ballot as a “Federal Prosecutor” when she is not, nor the fact that her opponents failed to challenge her spurious designation, can reasonably be viewed as justification for her out-and-out lie in representing herself in Sunday’s ad to be a “FEDERAL CORRUPTION PROSECUTOR.”

HAT WAS CHALLENGED by one of the other candidates (though not his own name but using a straw person) was her ineligibility to run for the office of Los Angeles city attorney based on not meeting a requirement of the city Charter. As pointed out here before, §270 of the Los Angeles city Charter provides:

“The City Attorney must be qualified to practice in all the courts of the state, and must have been so qualified for at least five years immediately preceding his or her election….”

Torres has not been “qualified to practice in all the courts of the state… for at least five years immediately preceding” the election because she was on voluntary inactive State Bar status from Feb, 1, 2016, until Jan. 1, 2018. She was not “qualified” to practice law during that period because doing so would have constituted the misdemeanor of practicing law without a license.

UR RECOMMENDATIONS ARE THESE:

•Torres should be recognized for what she is: a prevaricator, an individual lacking in moral fitness for office. She should not be elected as Los Angeles city attorney. The candidate we’ve endorsed is Kevin James. But whoever is elected among the seven contenders, it should not be Torres.

•Elections Code §13107 should be amended to incorporate the common-sense interpretation by the Office of Secretary of State. Just as John Hancock affixed a large signature on the Declaration of Independence supposedly so that King George could read it without his spectacles, the Legislature apparently needs to make its intent clear enough so that even Chalfant can discern it.

•Should Torres be elected (and that’s likely), the California attorney general should secure a definitive interpretation of the city Charter by instituting a proceeding in quo warranto. Failing that, such an action should at least be authorized should some individual who wants to thwart a cheater from prospering seeks leave to proceed. While the prospect of appellate review did not exist in the few days before Los Angeles Superior Court Judge Mitchell Beckloff’s denial of a writ petition to bar Torres’s name from appearing on the ballot and the printing of the ballots, there is no such impediment to gaining an appellate court determination—on a expedited basis, it is to be hoped—of Torres’s eligibility for office, in the event she were chosen as city attorney by a deceived electorate.

•If Torres were a candidate for a judgeship, she would be subject to discipline by the State Bar based on her campaign chicanery. Rule 8.2(b) of the Rules of Professional Conduct provides: “A lawyer who is a candidate for judicial office in California shall comply with canon 5 of the California Code of Judicial Ethics.” That canon says in subd. B(l): “A candidate for judicial office…shall not:…( b) knowingly, or with reckless disregard for the truth, make false or misleading statements about the… identity, qualifications, present position, or any other fact concerning himself or herself or his or her opponent….” Emphasis added.

We do not see why attorneys should be penalized only if they lie about themselves or their opponents in a race for a judicial office. Whatever office is sought, an attorney brings dishonor on the legal profession through an attempt to perpetrate a fraud. We suggest that Rule 8.1—which, as presently worded, is mere surplusage—be amended to bar in any election for public office what Canon 5(B)(1)(b) proscribes in connection with candidacies for election (or appointment) to judicial offices.

Torres could—and in our view should—be disciplined under Business & Professions Code §6106 which sets forth that “[t]he commission of any act involving moral turpitude, dishonesty or corruption, whether the act is committed in the course of his relations as an attorney or otherwise, and whether the act is a felony or misdemeanor or not, constitutes a cause for disbarment or suspension.” And there’s Rule 8.4 which declares it to be “professional misconduct for a lawyer to”…“(c) engage in conduct involving dishonesty, fraud, deceit, or reckless or intentional misrepresentation.”

But lying in the course of a campaign for public office is commonplace and such a misdeed by a lawyer is apt to be shrugged off by the folks in the State Bar’s disciplinary section, under existing provisions. What is needed is an express rule forbidding lawyers to seek votes through blatant falsehoods in races for any public office. To have meaning, that would have to be coupled by a true commitment by the State Bar—through action, not just words—to elevate itself from the sort of insouciance that caused it, over a period of decades, to ignore egregious misconduct by Tom Girardi and so many others.

ARINA TORRES, IN PROCLAIMING herself to be a “FEDERAL CORRUPTION PROSECUTOR” in an insert in the Los Angeles Times— spewing one of the most blatant campaign lies we have encountered—connotes to us not merely an unsuitability on her part for the office she presently seeks but an unfitness to practice law in the courts of our state.

In recent years, Ira Reiner, while city attorney, incurred a State Bar slap on the wrist, to which he responded with a smart-alec remark. Carmen Trutanich faced a disciplinary proceeding based on alleged misconduct of a rather serious nature which wound up being dropped in light of the charges being stale.

The City of Los Angeles has had, over the past several years since Burt Pines left office, a succession of city attorneys who have been grossly inadequate for their posts. Now in reach of grabbing that office is a slimy campaign fraudster.

With the city’s history of folly in voting for that and other offices, Los Angeles has earned its description as “La La Land.” We urge that it not commit a grand goof-up on June 7 by electing Torres as city attorney.