When Hutchens was appointed sheriff in 2008, she succeeded Mike “America’s Sheriff” Carona, who had been convicted in federal court on corruption charges.

Hutchens unfortunately tightened the county’s conceal-carry policy, which Carona had loosened, in part to give permits to his cronies.

Hutchens tightened the policy even though a) Orange County is a conservative county whose populace favors gun rights. And b) the evidence now is overwhelming that allowing conceal-carry by honest citizens actually cuts crime. The reason is that criminals don’t care about such laws, so the laws only are followed by law-abiding citizens. That leaves citizens unarmed when under assault by armed thugs.

The 9th Circuit’s panel’s decision is under appeal. But even if the decision is overturned, Hutchens could continue her policy. That’s because, under California law, it is county sheriffs who hand out conceal-carry permits at their own discretion.

By Chris Reed

Unlike officials in New York, Washington and some other cities in the Northeast, elected leaders and law-enforcement officials in California took a generally measured and in some cases muted response to Monday’s terrorist attack at the iconic Boston Marathon.

The most specific expressions of alarm and concern came in San Francisco, which hosts the locally popular Bay to Breakers race on May 19 and the America’s Cup international sailing competition this summer and fall. Mayor Ed Lee and Police Chief Greg Suhr vowed to closely review security plans for the events and make sure they were strong. Suhr even compared his level of wariness over what the future might hold to where it was on Sept. 12, 2001, the day after the worst terrorist attacks in U.S. history.

In Sacramento, organizers of popular running events such as the California International Marathon and the Komen Race for the Cure reviewed security plans. Marathon director John Mansoor told the Sacramento Bee that what happened in Boston had sent a “shock wave through the running world.”  Mansoor spoke of the difficulty of securing an entire 26-mile marathon route, as opposed to just a race’s start and finish lines.

Upgrades at major events, or no changes at all

Elsewhere in the Golden State, the rhetoric was much more muted.

In Oakland, police said they would have an increased presence in coming days at Oakland A’s and Golden State Warriors games.

In Los Angeles, police officials announced plans for higher-profile security at major events, such as Dodgers games. Airport police confirmed that security had been increased at the Los Angeles, Van Nuys and Ontario airports, which are all under the control of the city of Los Angeles. LAX was the site of a domestic terrorism incident on July 4, 2002, that is rarely mentioned in overviews of homegrown terror.

Orange County Sheriff Sandra Hutchens said that events that draw large crowds, starting with but not limited to sporting and entertainment events, would have additional deputies on hand.

In San Diego, officials didn’t disclose any additional security measures. The San Diego police union, however, warned on Twitter of a phone scam called “Donations for the Boston Explosion.”

The Eureka Times-Standard said Humboldt County law enforcement authorities had taken no additional security steps beyond calling for “vigilance.”

Commentary

FEB. 17, 2012

By STEVEN GREENHUT

Whenever I write about police shootings, police and union officials always mouth the same line: You, in the public and the media, have no right to jump to conclusions about the split-second decisions deputies make until you know all the facts. The cops then refuse to release any details of the shooting and eventually produce a one-sided report, which doesn’t have to even be released to the public because it is exempt from the public records act. By then, the public and media are on to other things and the deputy who killed the person is back in the job after a few months of additional paid vacation.

Yet throughout the period when the public is supposed to be silent, the police union busies itself poisoning the well and releasing information that benefits its own members. This is from the Los Angeles Times today regarding a tragic shooting by an Orange County deputy sheriff of a Camp Pendleton Marine, Sgt. Manuel Loggins, while the Marine’s children were in the back of his vehicle:

“Camp Pendleton’s commanding officer said he is displeased with the ‘incorrect and deeply hurtful’ comments made about a Marine sergeant who was fatally shot by an Orange County sheriff’s deputy in a dark high school parking lot.

“‘While I am confident they will do the right thing in the end, I am less than satisfied with the official response from the city of San Clemente and Orange County,’ Col. Nicholas Marano said in a written statement Thursday.

“‘Many of the statements made concerning Manny Loggins’ character over the past few days are incorrect and deeply hurtful to an already grieving family,’ he added.

“The union representing Orange County sheriff’s deputies issued a statement this week saying that Sgt. Manuel Loggins contributed to his own death. He was shot during the predawn hours Feb. 7 by a deputy in the parking lot of San Clemente High School after allegedly yelling ‘irrational statements,’ the union said.”

Thuggish Union

So the OC deputies union, which in my experience covering Orange County, is a particularly thuggish organization, is busy trashing a man and wrecking his character in order to protect the deputy who killed him. The public is deprived of a chance to learn what really happened. Fortunately, the Marine’s family is being defended by Pendleton’s commanding officer, but in most police shootings, there are no high level officials to question the police action. The public always assumes that the person the deputy killed deserved his fate.

In this situation, statements from the union continue to change, as often is the case. In many shootings I’ve written about, the police officials continue to retell the story — with each retelling more closely mirroring the version that protects the officer at issue. It always ends up with the “perfect storm” in which the deputy had not other choice but to kill the person in question. In other cases, such as the beating death of a Fullerton homeless man by a group of Fullerton police officers, the police spokesman (also a union official) let out misinformation about the homeless man in a clear attempt to make the public believe that the guy got what was coming to him. Some Fullerton officers have been indicted in that horrific beating death.

In the Fullerton case, the police officers were allowed by officials at the department to watch a video of the beating and then get their stories straight before going on the record. Meanwhile, the public was denied the chance to see the video and the Fullerton cops even confiscated the video of a bystander who was recording what was happening. In New York, cops obstructed justice and loudly protested  at a trial where their members were accused of corruption, the latest reminder that police and their unions will stand up even for the most degenerate members of their fraternity.

Secrecy Continues

While former Orange County Sheriff Mike Carona spends time in jail after being convicted of federal corruption charges, the new sheriff, Sandra Hutchens, seems to be following in Carona’s secrecy footsteps. She has refused to release the name of the deputy who shot to death the Marine. In the past, she expressed shock and outrage after some of her deputies where accused by the DA of lying to protect one of their brethren accused of torturing a handcuffed man with a Taser. She wasn’t outraged at the behavior of her people, but at the audacity of the DA for referring to a well-known Code of Silence within the department. Forget about reform in these circumstances.

Forget also about what’s really needed — a review of use of force policies, a new more humane policing model, further open records so that the public gets to learn about how government employees operate, especially those with life-and-death power. Given that unions and police leadership always defend their own, it’s no surprise that instances of police abuse grow. There’s no accountability and the average deputy or union activists knows that sheriffs like Hutchens will defend them against real accountability.

As deputies and their defenders trash a dead man and his family, you can be sure they will complain loudly at anyone who jumps to any conclusions about whether the deputy acted appropriately. You can be sure that because of the power of the police unions in the Legislature, and a state Supreme Court case that locks down disciplinary records of misbehaving deputies and police officers, that we will never learn the truth about what happened and that more such events will happen in the future.

California obviously is a divide state that ought to be divided in two — at least. That clearly is shown in the following map of how easy to get a concealed carry weapon’s permit in California. The map is from California Concealed Carry Weapon, a great group that promotes the right to carry a gun.

California is a “may issue” state, meaning each county sheriff determines who gets the permits. As you would expect, the counties on the Left Coast issue almost no permits. While the counties in the more sensible interior of the state make it easy to get a permit.

The anomaly is Orange County, which is conservative Republican, but has a gun-control fanatic as sheriff, Sandra Hutchens, whom foolish voters re-elected in 2010.

It’s typical that the Left Coast doesn’t understand that, as the title of gun scholar John Lott’s book put it, “More Guns, Less Crime.” (Now available for just $3.42 on Kindle.)

The reason is that, when honest, law-abiding citizens carry concealed guns, criminals don’t know which potential victim is armed, and which unarmed. So crime goes down.

Here’s the map. It’s obvious that the green, freedom-loving areas should be split off from the red, repressive, pro-criminal areas.

Jan. 3, 2012

By JOHN SEILER

Maybe the most controversial, certainly the most aromatic proposition on the November 2 ballot is Proposition 19, which would decriminalize marijuana. Not just for medical uses, but for use by any adult. Local governments would have the primary task of implementing Prop. 19, including collecting taxes for local use. The state could not collect taxes.

The Orange County Register, where I am an editorial writer, recently hosted those for and against Prop. 19. Although not an actual debate, the two sides were interviewed within the span of three hours, providing a point-counterpoint.

Backing Prop. 19 were Judge James P. Gray, a  retired superior court judge from Orange County. He long has been involved in drug legalization and other libertarian causes. His new book is, “A Voter’s Handbook: Effective Solutions to America’s Problems.”

He was joined by Hanna Liebman Dershowitz, an attorney in Culver City and a member of the Prop. 19 Legal Committee.

Taking the side of opposition were Dick Ackerman, a lawyer and former Republican leader in the California Senate. And Sandra Hutchens, who just was re-elected as the sheriff of Orange County.

Local smoke

Gray began with an argument for local control: “The beauty of this is the concept of federalism, not just within each state, but each city. Cities are allowed to opt in. The cities are in control. The cities will make the regulations. A private company wouldn’t have a right to sell it without city approval.

“Some of the opposition slaps the face of the cities, saying, ‘This is too complicated for you.’ That is a false concern.”

Ackerman disagreed, “This puts it all on the local governments. That would mean up to 500 different rules. I’m a 100 percent believer in local control. But this throws the state out – except for commercial production.”

Dershowitz made this comparison: “The model used here is the dry county/wet county system. Long-term, as best practices develop [in courts], the state will take a more active role.”

Although not as common as it used to be, a legacy of alcohol Prohibition was that some some counties, mainly in the rural American South and Midwest, banned alcohol; while neighboring counties legalized it.

Workplace highs

A major point of contention was over how Prop. 19 would affect workplaces. “Impaired job performance is the only criterion” by which an employer could judge that an employee has been using marijuana, Hutchens said. “The burden is on the employer to prove impairment. It will be tested in time over labor law. Random testing for marijuana might not be permitted. You would get more rights as a marijuana smoker than a cigarette smoker has.”

Ackerman added that “It’s a failing of our labor laws. The Legislature is anti-business. Those labor laws are not going to change. SEIU is supported it.” SEIU is the Service Employees International Union. “This is not about legalization of marijuana. That’s very misleading. It’s a hit on business. It puts businesses in a bind. It makes pot-smoking a civil right, almost. You can smoke it in the workplace, unless you can show it impairs the worker’s ability to do the job. It would put people in a special class.”

“We’ll see this criticism from the California Chamber of Commerce: nitpicking and exaggerating,” Judge Gray said. He insisted that, for someone to be challenged at work for using marijuana, “It has to affect their job performance. If they smoked it Friday night, by Monday morning there’s no impairment,” so under Prop. 19, the worker could not be challenged in that example.

How to determine impairment? “That’s a problem that will exist whether or not 19 passes,” he said. “The purpose of 19 is to treat marijuana like alcohol.”

Dershowitz insisted, “It does not require employers to control employees’ off-the-job use. Only on-the-job. There are several ways it’s not a problem” in the workplace. “Four sections of the Act address the workplace condition.”

The hard stuff

Another objection to Prop. 19 is that, as Hutchens put it, “The marijuana of today has a much higher THC content than that of the 1960s.” THC is the active hallucinogenic chemical in marijuana.

Gray said, “The cardinal rule of prohibition: always sell the harder stuff. Law enforcement says marijuana is much stronger than in the 1960s. But the law makes no distinction between weaker and stronger marijuana. So you can’t find milder marijuana,” because pushers, facing equal punishment for potent or mild pot, choose the former. “If it were legalized, you wouldn’t automatically use the harder stuff.”

Ackerman contended that marijuana is a “gateway” drug, encouraging young people to try it first, then go on to harder drugs such as methamphetamine and heroin.

Gray said, “Today by our laws we are forcing people up a ladder. If they have any reason to believe they might be tested, then they are pushed to use something else. For example, marijuana stays in the system 30 days, methamphetamine three days.”

He also pointed to Holland, which legalized marijuana, and Portugal, which legalized all drugs, but have not seen pandemics of addiction. Hutchens countered that, “In Holland, they have more drug cartels than before.”

One thing they agreed on was asset forfeitures, by which law enforcement seizes the homes, cars and other property of a person accused of using marijuana or another drug, often even without a trial. Critics, such as the group Forfeiture Endangers American Rights, insist that asset forfeiture is abused by many law-enforcement agencies.

“Marijuana would just be excluded from that,” Ackerman said. Gray agreed, “It would address that indirectly, as Prop. 19 reduces the number of people making money,” and so subject to forfeitures. “Marijuana is the number one cash crop in California; number two is grapes.”

Teen tokers

For at least 40 years, the easiest place to get marijuana has been from a teenager. “It will make it less available for teenagers,” Dershowitz said, by maintaining penalties for selling to teenagers, while lifting them for adults; thus allowing law enforcement to re-direct its enforcement energies. “Now it’s easier than getting alcohol.”

“My concern is youth,” Hutchens countered. “I do not think it sends the right message to our children. We end up paying for it in one way or another.

Roll up for the voters’ decision

For Gray, Prop. 19 is “one of the most important changes of my lifetime – and yours. If and when Prop. 19 passes, it will sweep the nation. The federal government is absolutely agitated.”

“This is not the right proposition. It’s deceptively crafted. It makes a lot of allegations that aren’t true. The initiative allows you to grow marijuana in your yard,” Hutchens said.

“It should be outlawed,” concluded Ackerman. “Alcohol is good, drugs bad. I’m old fashioned.”

John Seiler, an editorial writer with The Orange County Register for 20 years, is a reporter and analyst for CalWatchDog.com. His email: writejohnseiler@gmail.com.