Perfect Murder, Perfect Town - Lawrence Schiller [113]
Technically, you could say there were no pleas bargained, because the charges weren’t filed yet.
Today the vestiges of that era are still in Boulder. I would say in 10 percent of my cases, maybe 15 percent, I can go to the DA and say, “We need to talk. Here’s what’s wrong with your case.” Or if we know what is likely to happen, plea bargain it before charging.
As defense counsel, I’m always asking, Who is this defendant? And also, Who is this victim? I have to focus just as much on how much the victim has been hurt as on what has happened to my client. In other words, Pete Hofstrom and I are clones of each other. If I walk in there and just tell my client’s side without any awareness of the impact on the victim, Pete will say, “You haven’t done your homework. Come back with the other side of the story.”
—Paul McCormick
After I spent four years as a deputy DA for Alex Hunter, I became a judge in Boulder County. Some of us district judges would just flat-out refuse to accept plea bargains from Hunter’s office. These were cases where we could see that the defendant deserved a heavier hand. An example: Hunter’s staff would bring me someone arrested for driving under the influence and want to plead it to careless driving when it was easy to prove a prima facie* case on the actual offense. I would review it and say no.
The only other negative reaction I ever saw to all this plea bargaining came from the police. The community never said a word.
—Virginia Chavez
Soon after Alex Hunter hired Pete Hofstrom in 1974, the DA’s office examined the issue of rehabilitation versus retribution for criminals. Determined to make the most of Boulder’s politically progressive attitudes, in the early 1980s Hunter initiated a series of discussions with a broad spectrum of residents. During a ten-year period, he invited more than twelve hundred groups to his office. He met mostly with women, always asking the same kinds of questions: “A seventeen-year-old kid is caught committing a robbery with a .357 magnum. Do you throw the book at him? Do you give him another chance?”
“You get tough with anybody who brings a loaded .357 to a robbery,” more than one Boulderite told Hunter. “If you slap his wrist and give him another chance, what message does that send?”
To some Boulderites it seemed that the DA didn’t like coming down hard on crime. To others, it seemed that Hunter wanted to be in step with Boulder’s citizens, but it was also possible that Hunter simply wanted to see if his thinking was in line with public opinion. In any case, he came away with a clearer picture of what was expected of him.
Hofstrom and Hunter examined the concept of deferred sentences,* as well as deferred prosecution** for first-time nonviolent offenders. Hofstrom believed that if such offenders made restitution, attended appropriate rehabilitation programs, and stayed out of trouble for a minimum of two years, their cases should be dismissed and their records sealed; something short of a conviction.
The attitude was deeply ingrained in Hofstrom, who had paid his way through college and law school by working as a prison guard and had maintained a deep interest in the plight of society’s outcasts. Alex Hunter agreed with Hofstrom’s position. As a result, rehabilitation became the first consideration for the DA’s office.
In a small town like Boulder, an attorney doesn’t succeed or fail by his prowess in the courtroom, because so few cases go to trial. If only eight felony cases out of two thousand go to trial each year in Boulder, you have to ask yourself who really decides all those remaining cases.
If you’re a defense attorney with such ferocious power that the DA’s office is afraid to face you in court, you’re in a fine bargaining position. Maybe there are a few attorneys like that in Boulder. But for the most part, you make deals by being on good terms with the DA’s office.