Who ordered the investigation into a former district attorney
inspector? The answer to that question depends on who you ask.
Local attorneys Greg LaForge and Harry Damkar believe the state
Attorney General’s Office did not direct the District Attorney’s
Office to conduct an investigation into prior felony convictions
involving former inspector Dennis Stafford.
Who ordered the investigation into a former district attorney inspector? The answer to that question depends on who you ask.
Local attorneys Greg LaForge and Harry Damkar believe the state Attorney General’s Office did not direct the District Attorney’s Office to conduct an investigation into prior felony convictions involving former inspector Dennis Stafford.
San Benito County District Attorney John Sarsfield disagrees.
“We consulted with (officials at the Attorney General’s Office) and we were directed to do this,” Sarsfield said.
Local attorneys Greg LaForge and Harry Damkar said Tuesday they believe Sarsfield is misleading people and the courts about the investigation into and possible retrial of 57 prior felony convictions.
Damkar said he talked to Chief Assistant Attorney General Robert Anderson recently and Anderson told him his office had not ordered Sarsfield to investigate the 57 convictions in question.
“My conversation with Mr. Anderson, he said that the AG’s office is not conducting a joint investigation and that they did not order Mr. Sarsfield to conduct an investigation,” Damkar said.
He said the state Attorney General’s Office gave Sarsfield the option to investigate the situation if he believed there were violations of the Brady Standard, but that he was not ordered to do anything.
“What the DA is trying to do is change the Brady Standard set up by the U.S. Supreme Court and make it the Sarsfield standard,” LaForge said. “There are no Brady violations here on any of these cases.”
The Brady Standard is based on a 1963 U.S. Supreme Court ruling that said prosecutors have to turn over any information they have that could benefit the defense’s case.
“By Sarsfield stating that he was ordered by the Attorney General to conduct this investigation and to conduct the investigation jointly with the attorney general’s office is a lie,” LaForge said.
He said Sarsfield recently told a group of local defense attorneys and both superior court judges during a meeting he was “ordered” to conduct the investigation.
“He lied to the press, he lied to the judge and he’s lied to the community at large,” LaForge said. “Sarsfield is doing nothing more than trying to legitimize an unwarranted action by hiding behind the skirt of the Attorney General.”
Sarsfield vehemently denies any claim he has misled anyone or is not acting on the direction of the Attorney General’s office. He said he knows this investigation may be painful to some, but as a prosecutor he has a duty and responsibility to abide by the Brady Standard.
“We have an obligation to the court and we have an obligation to the law,” Sarsfield said.
Sarsfield and Sheriff Curtis Hill went to the state Attorney General’s Office on Jan. 22 and brought his concerns to the attention of Anderson.
“Mr. Anderson told us to brief the presiding judge on this and we acted in consultation and at the direction of the attorney General’s Office,” Sarsfield said. “I personally talked to Attorney General Bill Lockyer about this briefly.
“I was directed by Mr. Anderson to conduct a full internal review of all cases that might be impacted,” he said. “I was also directed to advise our presiding judge that many of these cases would be returning to court.”
Hill supported Sarsfield’s recollection of their meeting with Anderson in January.
“There was no question that Mr. Sarsfield was directed to look into this,” Hill said. “I can tell you that from what I heard directly.”
Hill said members of the Attorney General’s Office directed Sarsfield to look into this because of state budget cuts that left the office without enough manpower to look into the possible Brady violations themselves.
Anderson declined to comment on whether or not he told Sarsfield to investigate the alleged Brady violations. He instead referred the matter to the Attorney General’s press relations office, which did not return the Free Lance’s phone calls by press time.
The investigation Sarsfield is conducting was announced Sept. 10 and focuses on the alleged misconduct by Stafford while he was a peace officer.
Sarsfield said his office learned Stafford, who had been with the District Attorney’s Office for about 10 years, was listed as a suspect in some police reports about a child molestation case and that he possibly hid information about crimes committed by his son. That information was not turned over to defense attorneys, Sarsfield alleges.
Damkar said there were no Brady violations as far as Stafford was concerned because the information Brady requires the prosecution to turn over about witnesses or people working the case must be considered “material” evidence. Had the information been disclosed, it could have had the possibility of changing the outcome of the case.
“(Stafford) was not a material witness to many of those cases for the prosecution. He helped us with jury selection, he helped us put together exhibits for court but he was not critical to the outcome of the case,” Damkar said. “If he had dropped dead, we would have still gone ahead with the case.”
In several of the cases Sarsfield has called into question, Stafford was working for the defense.
