The Choice for State's Attorney

Marilyn Mosby is the most incompetent state's attorney Baltimore has had in my 30 years as a city resident (21 of which I spent in the state's attorney's office.)   Crime has exploded on her watch, and despite her shucking of all responsibility, much of the blame lies with her.  

First, her ethically and legally flawed prosecution of the Freddie Gray "six" produced a profoundly chilling effect on the police department, which could not depend on Mosby to apply the law and facts without bias as it did its work.  Second, she has decimated the State's Attorney's Office, which now lacks the experience and talent to successfully focus resources on fighting crime.  Mosby was not qualified for the job to begin with, and has since demonstrated an unfitness of temperament and judgment to learn anything along the way.

But right now a vote for or against Mosby is a referendum on the Freddie Gray case.   I believe that most city voters who don't understand the law or know how she has destroyed her office will want to reward her for "trying" to do something about police brutality.  Only the passage of more time and escalating suffering at the hands of violent criminals will change that.

Nevertheless, one can hope for a change, although my faint hopes were nearly extinguished when neither one of her two challengers withdrew before the ballot deadline.   A split non-Mosby vote ensures four more years of Mosby ineffectiveness.

But despite my pessimism, I still choose to vote.  On the eve of early voting, for those who want to know my opinion, here it is.

Thiru Vignarajah  is a very smart man, smarter than me, and smarter than Ivan Bates, the other challenger.   He has a plan to fight violent crime that he could very well put in place.  (By the way, all the "plans" sound alike.  Focus on violent offenders, provide treatment for the non-violent, etc. etc.  For me, the devil is in the details, and most especially in one's ability to execute those details.)  Vignarajah appears to understand how to implement a strategy better than  Bates.  I also believe he is the harder worker, who will pour energy into the job. 

Bates is a likable man who came up through the ranks in the city prosecutor's office.  He spent less than two years in the homicide unit, his last stop, before leaving for criminal defense work, so his claim of being "undefeated" in prosecuting murder cases always struck me as hyberbolic.  He got into a spat with Mosby (who tried no murder cases) and Vignarajah about it the other day, but what bothered me more than an exaggerated claim was Bates' resort to a silly conspiracy theory:  that Vignarajah was in the race to benefit Mosby.  Voters don't need more garbage to sort through, especially from someone who wants to be the top law enforcement attorney.

I don't believe that Bates is the high-energy, strategic thinker that Vignarajah is, but he is a competent and intelligent attorney.  I think he will improve recruitment and retention in the prosecutor's office, and will bring in the people who can help him execute a focused plan.  He is not an egotist, someone who thinks he knows better than anybody else, and he will listen, both critical qualities in a leader. 

On strategical thinking, on physical energy, I give the nod to Vignarajah, though I expect Bates to do fine.  But there's a final category that's very important to me: ethics.  Vignarajah came over from the U.S. Attorney's office to lead a special crime-fighting unit for then-State's Attorney Gregg Bernstein.  There he demonstrated the smarts to learn quickly and create strategies.  But he also raised concerns about ethics, both in discovery (turning required evidence over to the defense) and in charging.  In his zeal to attain certain objectives, he was not always careful to heed to each ethical standard, causing alarm among well-respected colleagues.  To me, behavior like this is a symptom of ambition, a willingness to short-cut rules to achieve pre-set goals.  Ambition in politics is expected and normalized.  But ambition for something other than adherence to rules and ethics in a prosecutor scares me.  You know, like what Mosby did.

And then there's his judgment when it comes to women.  He promoted a young woman to his special unit who lacked not only the amount of experience that other applicants had, but the minimum experience needed for the position.  And when he left the State's Attorney's Office for the Attorney General's Office, he changed the qualification requirements so that he could hire her there, too.  (They have since been changed back.)

And while at the Attorney General's office, during the course of an attempted sexual encounter, he gave out information about his office that he admitted would be "really bad" if it came out publicly.  Unluckily for Vignarajah, the woman he pursued was not looking for sex but for suckers to compromise themselves on hidden camera.  

Bates is no saint, either.  As a defense attorney, he once admitted to others that he attempted a "trick" in court that he had learned from another defense attorney,  But when called out and investigated for it, he testified that he had not been involved.

I don't like what Bates did as a defense attorney, but I dislike even more ethical compromising from an ambitious prosecutor.   The first duty must always be to the law and the facts, and decisions can't be influenced by personal desires.  

Vignarajah told me how much money he could raise to defeat Mosby.  He failed to deliver.  As of the last fundraising statement, through May 15, Bates had raised more (if one doesn't count the $250,000 Vignarajah loaned to his own campaign.)  Rather than becoming the leading challenger, Vignarajah will play the spoiler.  

So Ivan Bates for State's Attorney.  And whoever wins, God help the city of Baltimore.