GERRY HORNE, Pierce County Elected Prosecuting Attorney
   OP-ED article published in the Tacoma News Tribune January 15, 2006

Pierce County should elect its sheriffs

The story of Dick Greco is one reason I favor an elected sheriff for Pierce County.

As county auditor, for years Greco demanded and received cash kickbacks from his automobile licensing sublets.

Greco also got annual $5,000 cash kickbacks for storing voting machines in a private warehouse on the Tacoma waterfront. As the auditor, Greco was responsible for licensing numerous other businesses, including sauna and massage parlors.

Greco would have loved to have the power to appoint the sheriff and have his handpicked sheriff work for him "at his pleasure." Fortunately, Greco never became county executive.

My point is that all elected officials, not just those heading police organizations, are subject to "corrupt influences," e.g. Pierce County's "Cadillac Judge" Grant Anderson and (allegedly) U.S. Rep Tom DeLay, R-Texas.

Similarly, all elected officials are subject to the influence of unions and other special-interest groups. The position of county executive is subject to pressures from special interests and unions, including those representing deputy prosecutors and police.

I don't believe that an elected sheriff is any more apt to yield to corruption than an elected county executive or any other public official.

The News Tribune's Jan. 5 editorial opposing a switch to an elected sheriff mentioned that former Tacoma Police Chief David Brame had been labeled as a product of an organization "fostering or tolerating a culture of corruption."

Yet Brame and his predecessors were appointed, not elected. In appointing Brame, City Manager Ray Corpuz was subject to the very union pressures condemned in the editorial. The pressures do not disappear in an appointment process.

Appointed positions are not immune from the corruptive influences of power. Former FBI Director J. Edgar Hoover "kept book" on President Kennedy and other presidents, making oversight of Hoover difficult and his firing improbable if not impossible.

The editorial speaks to egregious, corruptive lapses in the culture of the King County Sheriff's Office under former Sheriff Dave Reichert and his successor. The editorial implies that the lapses would not have occurred if Reichert had been appointed rather than elected. The focus is misplaced.

The nature of Reichert's ascension to sheriff (elected or appointed) had little if anything to do with his reported failure to discipline misbehaving police officers. His ostensible failures of vigilance and discipline were his to account for and had nothing to do with being elected rather than appointed.

If Lord Acton's dictum was correct – "Power tends to corrupt, and absolute power corrupts absolutely" – then we should be concerned about where we place power.

If the next county executive is a Dick Greco rather than a John Ladenburg, just watch how a good sheriff like our current one, Paul Pastor, would be maneuvered out of his office.

When the executive has the power to appoint the sheriff, he has the power of the sheriff. In effect, he is the sheriff. The appointed sheriff by necessity will be loyal and march in unison with his boss, the executive.

Finally, allowing the executive to appoint the sheriff gives the executive too much power and may stifle an important voice for criminal justice advocacy.

An elected sheriff would be free to formulate his own agenda and advocate issues to the public as he saw fit.

An appointed sheriff cannot speak out independently unless his views coincide with and have the approval of the executive.

For example, what if the executive and the council differed over criminal justice issues? Wouldn't we want an independent sheriff to give his views on controversies between the executive and legislative branches of county government without feeling he would be disloyal if his views coincided with council views?

In summary, the sheriff should be an independently elected position rather than one appointed by the executive.

Pierce County Prosecutor Gerry Horne came to Tacoma in 1979 as a special prosecutor hired to assist in cases resulting from the arrest of former Sheriff George Janovich in a racketeering case. He has remained in the Prosecutor's Office ever since.