Wednesday, Aug. 18, 2010

In DWI cases, Doyle took political risk

By definition, politicians make political decisions, so we won't debate those who say District Attorney Susan Doyle made a political calculation when she moved to reinstate drunk-driving charges that had been dismissed illegally.

But seriously, was the county's chief prosecutor supposed to ignore DWI cases that had been dismissed unlawfully? We don't think that's what voters hired Mrs. Doyle to do.

For the record, we happen to think Mrs. Doyle made the right call. Her job is to seek justice, and when an assistant prosecutor handed blank dismissal forms to four attorneys just before leaving town, justice never had a chance.

But for the sake of argument, let's asumme the decision was political. If so, it was a risky one, and Doyle won't know how risky until the November election.

(Speaking of politicians, Mrs. Doyle's November challenger, Democrat George Murphy, was quick to say that the DA's move was politically motivated. We suppose Mr. Murphy was ready to say the same thing if Mrs. Doyle had failed to act. So who's playing politics here?)

But Mr. Murphy aside, voters want their prosecutors to be tough on crime. They want mercy for themselves, of course, but they want lawbreakers to be punished. So Mrs. Doyle likely scored political points when she moved to refile the drunk-driving charges. In any event, she would have likely suffered political harm if the headline had read, "Prosecutor abandons DWI cases."

And it's still possible that Doyle damaged herself politically. After all, she lost her bid to reinstate the DWI cases, and she did so in a way that appeared bumbling. The district attorney never had the chance to defend her argument for reinstating the cases; the legal tack she took to refile the cases was flawed, the judge said, without ever hearing an agrument from Doyle.

Not suprisingly, the chief critics of Mrs. Doyle's move were the accused and their attorneys. As for the accused, a voter might say, "There but for the grace of God go I." But no one feels sorry for a lawyer forced to actually defend his client.

We'll leave it to voters in November to decide whether Doyle did the right thing for the right reason.