Summer Stephan unanimous pick to be San Diego County’s interim district attorney

After a three-hour hearing, the San Diego County Board of Supervisors unanimously voted Tuesday to make veteran prosecutor Summer Stephan the interim district attorney for the next 18 months.

(Hayne Palmour IV / San Diego Union-Tribune)

In making the decision, the supervisors didn’t heed calls made over the past several weeks and by some speakers at the hearing to require that anyone getting the appointment pledge not to run as a candidate for the full term in 2018.

Instead, supervisors expressed confidence in Stephan and brushed off suggestions of appointing a caretaker to finish the term of District Attorney Bonnie Dumanis, who announced in April she would resign in July from the job she has held since being elected in 2002.

The board chose Stephan over two other candidates, former Deputy District Attorneys Adam Gordon and Greg Walden. Both had applied for the job and pledged they would not be a candidate next year. They urged the board not to be part of what they called Dumanis’ succession plan to maneuver Stephan into the post.

All five of the supervisors supported Stephan’s appointment, but the vote to name her to the position on Tuesday without another hearing was 4-1, with Supervisor Kristin Gaspar opposed.

In the weeks leading up to the hearing, political professionals had said winning the appointment would give Stephan a significant advantage heading into the 2018 election, allowing her to essentially run as an incumbent. Stephan is the only announced candidate in the district attorney race.

A similar situation occurred in 2009 when the late William Kolender resigned as sheriff and the board named his top deputy, current Sheriff Bill Gore, as an interim.

Gore easily won election over two other candidates the following year and in a re-election bid in 2014. He intends to run again next year.

Of the 34 speakers at the hearing, 24 spoke in support of Stephan. They included ministers, representatives of organizations fighting human trafficking — an issue Stephan has worked on in the District Attorney’s Office — representatives of law enforcement labors groups that have endorsed her election bid and several of her fellow prosecutors.

They commended her leadership and capability to take over the job right away.

Several other speakers did not specifically endorse Gordon or Walden but said they wanted the county supervisors to appoint a caretaker — and leave the decision on who will be the next district attorney to voters in a race where no candidate would have the advantage, real or perceived, of incumbency.

Perhaps the most forceful voice in opposition to Stephan came from Cheryl Crowe, whose 12-year-old daughter Stephanie was murdered in the family’s Escondido home in 1998. Stephan was the lead prosecutor in the notorious case, pursuing murder charges against Stephanie’s brother and two of his friends.

But the case disintegrated just before trial when DNA evidence implicated Richard Tuite, a transient who was later convicted and then acquitted at a second trial after the first conviction was overturned.

Charges were dropped against the youths, and the Crowe family later won $9 million in lawsuits against police and others involved.

Cheryl Crowe, mother of Stephanie Crowe, who was murdered in 1998, looks back at Summer Stephan as she tells the county Board of Supervisors why she objected to Stephan being named interim district attorney. Stephan was the lead prosecutor in Stephanie’s case.

(Hayne Palmour IV / San Diego Union-Tribune)

Stephan has defended her role by saying she inherited a flawed case and did her best with what she was given. But in a blistering 22-page letter delivered to the supervisors last week, Crowe angrily refuted that, accusing Stephan of hiding evidence and lying in her application to be the interim district attorney about her work on the case.

An emotional Crowe, who now lives in Oregon, told the supervisors that contrary to Stephan’s statements in her application that she had acted with compassion and ethics, Stephan was “mean, unethical and incompetent” in her daughter’s case.

“Summer Stephan wants this job so she can put the word ‘incumbent’ next to her name on the 2018 ballot,” she said, as the packed hearing room fell silent. “Don’t put your thumb on the scale. Don’t give her an edge she does not deserve.”

Stephan did not address the Crowe case but mentioned other work she has done over the years as she rose from a trial prosecutor to a branch supervisor in North County and recently as one of the office’s chief deputies, a top management position.

She successfully prosecuted a man who was sentenced to 189 years in prison for a shooting rampage at Kelly Elementary School in Carlsbad in 2010 that injured two students. She also has pressed for legislation to curb human trafficking and served on committees on the issue.

“I feel really honored and grateful to have the confidence and trust of the supervisors to be selected as the most qualified person,” Stephan said after the vote.

But the decision did not sit well with some. Jessica Hayes, head of the San Diego County Democratic Party, said appointing anyone other than a caretaker would be “unethical” and create a “cloud of corruption” over the supervisors.

Dumanis’ announcement to step down early was not a surprise. Last year, her future plans had been the subject of much speculation in political circles. In October, she told The San Diego Union-Tribune she had not decided if she would seek re-election but would be “very supportive” if Stephan decided to run.

In December, Dumanis announced she would not seek a fifth, four-year term in 2018, and told top managers in the office that Stephan was her preferred successor.

Dumanis and Stephan also separately had 10 meetings last year with individual members of the Board of Supervisors, most of those occurring between July and December. The supervisors said the subject of the interim appointment did not come up at the meetings, though some did discuss Stephan’s plans to run for district attorney in 2018.

And this year, when Dumanis announced she was resigning on July 7, she also said she is considering a run for the Board of Supervisors next year.

One speaker told the supervisors on Tuesday that “the office of district attorney is not a monarchy.”

Supervisor Greg Cox, however, rejected criticism that Dumanis was orchestrating a succession plan. “The DA does not get to choose her successor,” Cox said.

After the meeting, Gordon said he wasn’t surprised by the outcome.

“I think the entire process went pretty much as expected,” he said. “I think what was important was having voices in the community heard. Now we can move forward, and the community has a great opportunity to evaluate all the candidates in 2018.”

Twitter: @gregmoran

greg.moran@sduniontribune.com

ALSO:

Stephanie Crowe’s parents say DA candidate Stephan ‘using my dead daughter to promote her political ambitions’

DA Dumanis, elected on criticism of Crowe case, now endorsing one of its prosecutors as her replacement

Dumanis’ preferred successor as DA gets endorsement, then declares candidacy

UPDATES:

8 p.m.: This article was updated with more details from the Board of Supervisors hearing.

This article was originally published at 5:20 p.m.