Is the AG’s office a dead end? (continued)

ANOTHER CONTROVERSY that ensnared Lynch was last summer’s state police raid to search for evidence that Narragansett Indians were selling tax-free tobacco on their property in Charlestown. When fights broke out between the Indians and troopers, seven people were injured, and the ugly melee was dutifully televised on the 6 and 11 o’clock news.

Carcieri had ordered the police action, and Lynch was among those advising him a search warrant was appropriate. But later, Lynch lashed out at the governor after Carcieri said he’d cautioned the state police to pull back if officers met resistance. Providence Journal political columnist M. Charles Bakst quoted Lynch as saying, "It’s terribly unfortunate that he excoriated the colonel of the state police publicly and the men and women of the state police who merely were doing their job." Lynch also later criticized the governor for what he said was a waffling approach over the weekend preceding the raid about whether to go ahead with it.

The AG also found himself at odds with the state’s growing — and politically potent — Latino community, when Danny Sigui, an illegal immigrant from Guatemala, was deported by federal officials soon after Sigui stepped forward to help deliver a conviction in the fatal stabbing of a man outside a Central Falls bar in 2001. Critics said the deportation was unfair to Sigui, who had taken an honorable step by coming forward, and that it was sure to discourage similar civic gestures. Lynch, though, told the Phoenix his office is careful to advise witnesses of the pitfalls of appearing publicly, and that "if they decide as part of that they won’t go forward as witnesses, we don’t run to the agencies." Sigui "kind of forced our hand" on the issue, the AG says, because prosecutors learned he’d testified under two false names in earlier proceedings, forcing the department to do background checks that brought his illegal status to light.

Perhaps due to his years as a top athlete — he was a member of the Brown University basketball team that won a 1986 Ivy League championship, and later played professionally in Ireland — Lynch seems drawn to competition.

One face-off is with the Carcieri administration and the Narragansett Electric Company over whether unsightly electrical power transmission lines across the Providence and East Providence waterfronts should be buried when they have to be moved as part of the relocation of Interstate 195. The Republican administration is nervous that the dispute — which boils down to an argument about how to pay the extra costs of burying the lines — will delay the nearly half-billion-dollar highway project. Lynch says delay isn’t his intention. But the possibility of lengthy hearings and legal action gives Lynch an obviously strong card in the dispute.

In still another dust-up with long-term implications, Lynch’s office late in the year sought criminal contempt proceedings against the state’s dominant newspaper, the Providence Journal, and a network-affiliated TV station, WLNE, Channel 6. The Journal published a file picture of a witness, and the TV station broadcast courtroom images of another witness in the trial of Charles Pona, despite a Superior Court order that no photographs be taken or shown of witnesses. The issue was especially delicate because Pona was accused of murder in the death of 15-year-old Jennifer Rivera, who was slated to be a witness against Pona in an earlier case. (Rivera’s slaying, along with the shooting death of Providence police officer Cornel Young Jr., were the two major controversies during the tenure of Lynch’s predecessor, Sheldon Whitehouse, straining relations with some members of minority groups.)

According to the Journal, a lawyer for the paper and TV station is arguing that the judge’s order was "patently unconstitutional" in restraining free press rights. While some reporters are privately critical of the TV station for using trial footage in the face of the judge’s order, many in the media — including this writer — view Lynch’s threat of criminal sanctions as a harsh attack on fragile press freedom.

Lynch, though, says that he regarded the order protecting witnesses’ photographic images as legitimate, given the relevance of witness intimidation in the case. "That case is absolutely and entirely distinguishable and worthwhile," he says. "Ultimately, the sanctions that will be imposed could be monetary penalties, which, frankly, I don’t think send a message. To fine the Journal a thousand bucks: What does that matter? What deterrent, what general deterrent, does that have?"

THE MERITS of the contempt case aside, it has obvious political and personal ramifications for someone in Lynch’s position.

"It is quite unusual for a Rhode Island official to sue a media outlet. I can’t really remember a past example of that," says Darrell M. West, a political science professor at Brown University. Polls by West have found that Lynch’s image was not doing all that well even before the media case. A February 2003 survey showed the AG with a 47 percent approval rating, and by September, it dropped to 37 percent. "He’s had a tough year, just because he never got a honeymoon," West says. "Right after taking office, he had the Station fire, and that issue dominated his time ever since."

West thinks Lynch is getting better at the public relations part of his job, but he notes that the attorney general’s office is uniquely difficult for any politician: "It’s a powerful job . . . but it is not a very good launching pad for a political career."

Lynch says he knows all about the office’s reputation as a political graveyard. In fact, his staff has researched the history; a spokeswoman says the last AG to move up the political ladder was Christopher Robinson, who served in 1854 and was a First District Congressman from 1859 to 1861. More recently, Whitehouse lost a close Democratic gubernatorial primary to Myrth York in 2002. And Whitehouse’s tenure was relatively smooth compared to that of his predecessor, Jeffrey B. Pine. Regarded as an able prosecutor, Pine ran into tough sledding when, during the corruption trial of former governor Edward DiPrete, a judge threw out the case because prosecution evidence hadn’t been turned over to the defense. Pine, who won reinstatement of the DiPrete case before the Supreme Court, also disbanded his narcotics "strike force" after accusations of misconduct.

Bill Lynch, the Democratic Party chairman and the AG’s brother, says the office’s dismal history should dispel much of the early criticism that his brother is too politically connected to be an impartial attorney general. "If Patrick were simply interested in nothing other than a political career — which is not what I believe his priority is — then he certainly would have been much better advised to have run for another office, such as lieutenant governor," Bill Lynch says.

While Bill Lynch says he wholeheartedly supported his brother’s run for office and that they remain close — they speak almost daily and still play in amateur basketball leagues — he says they never discuss operations of the AG’s office. "I don’t have any input at all into the — I think you said the ‘stewardship’ of his office — or how he runs his office," the Democratic chief says in an interview. "I would never do that, and frankly speaking, if I did, he would say: ‘Look, that’s really having nothing to do with your role as chairman of the party.’ "

Bill Lynch acknowledges that one issue dogging his brother is Patrick Lynch’s remarkably youthful appearance. (An out-of-town newsman told one local reporter, "Your attorney general looks like he just graduated from high school.") " ‘He looks young’ is what I really hear, and he does," Bill Lynch says, adding in brotherly fashion, "There will be a time, maybe 20 years from now, when he’ll appreciate that more than he does now. But to say that he’s young is really a misnomer," adds the elder Lynch, who is 46, compared to his brother’s 38 years. He notes Patrick Lynch had six years of experience as a prosecutor, mostly during the administration of Pine (now a defense lawyer for Station co-owner Jeffrey Derderian), and subsequent time in private law practice. "But people frequently see Patrick and the fact that he may look young, [and] they underestimate his determination and his toughness," Bill Lynch says.

One of the ways that Patrick Lynch showed this determination, Bill Lynch says, was in winning office. Although the party chairman wishes that the process is as easy as some people think — that his brother won a free pass because of the family name — he says the candidate earned the job over a long time. "What people don’t see is the fact that he made a determined decision two years in advance to run for that office, and worked at it," Bill Lynch says. "I mean I saw him a year and a half before any other interested party out campaigning, going to events in East Greenwich or Woonsocket, introducing himself to people."

More crucial to Patrick Lynch’s image than his schoolboy appearance is his seeming discomfort in some public forums, especially during televised press conferences like the one he held to announce the nightclub indictments. As depicted in a tape recorded by Channel 12, WPRI-TV, Lynch seems to fit the description of a student called unwillingly to the head of the class. There is sometimes a seeming unsteadiness to his voice; he clears his throat, and swallows; at one point, he almost disappears while grabbing for a water bottle. And there’s that testiness with reporters: "Hold on one second, hold on one second, please," Lynch barks at a reporter trying to get in a question, even though he really has nothing more to say on the point he was making before being interrupted.

But perhaps Lynch’s biggest media problem is that he has a unique speaking style that is ill suited to the age of the sound bite, in which both broadcast and print reporters seek the succinct quote that sums up a message. Lynch is not only long-winded, he frequently wanders from the point. For reporters struggling to figure out exactly what he’s saying, and for TV and radio editor editors searching for a telling phrase that will use seconds, not minutes of air time, Lynch’s style is a nightmare.

He was asked, for example, at the indictment press conference when the Station fire cases might come to trial.

"I can just say procedurally or systemically, having experience as a prosecutor — you know, a murder case comes in," Lynch begins. He says a single-death case might take two years. Then he describes the complexity of the Station case, increased by the long list of victims. He goes on to explain there will be pre-trial efforts by the defense and prosecution for more information. He praises prosecutors and law enforcers, saying their work will allow the office to respond quickly to information requests. Finally, he reconnects with the question: "If I had to put a date on it, I know you said no date certain, I would have to say, you know, a year-and-half, at least, to two years until the first goes to trial."

Bill Lynch puts it this way: "No matter who you are, there is a certain amount of seasoning politically that comes with doing things more than once."

Still, in a recent interview, Patrick Lynch seems to resist the idea that he ought to sharpen his public appearance, as if that implies he will be placing style over substance. "If I make my way and come across — fine," he says.

Despite the stormy issues faced by the AG, some observers credit Lynch with running a generally effective operation. "My sense [is that] the transition from Whitehouse has been reasonably smooth, in that this attorney general elected to retain the core of the office," says the veteran defense lawyer John A. MacFadyen. "My personal experience is that they seem to have managed to allocate resources reasonably well. I have not seen any serious dislocations in the new administration." MacFadyen adds, "I think they have a solid core of experienced prosecutors, who seem to be career prosecutors, which is exactly what you want to see."

IN THE END, says Brown’s Darrell West, political style may not be as important for an AG as other officeholders, observing that with "the attorney general’s office, voters are pretty bottom line-oriented." If this is the case, yet another recent controversy may prove the ultimate test for Lynch — the question of whether some state legislators have compromising financial conflicts.

The matter came up in stories by the Journal’s tenacious investigative and political reporter, Katherine Gregg, who revealed that state Senator John A. Celona (D-North Providence) hadn’t reported that he had been a paid consultant to drugstore giant CVS, even as his Senate committee was considering bills important to CVS. Celona yielded his chairmanship pending an Ethics Commission review, and WHJJ-AM talk-radio host John DePetro filed a complaint with Lynch’s office, asking for an investigation of the matter.

Shortly before Christmas, Lynch’s office acknowledged that an investigation had begun, in cooperation with the state police. In interviews with the Phoenix, Lynch said it was too early to tell whether the facts of the case would mirror those reported in the media, but he pledged, "I’ll go wherever this investigation dictates." Lynch added that his, "review is not necessarily limited to any one person, although the one most spoken about publicly is Chairman Celona."

The AG asserts that legislators, like lawyers, should be careful to disclose possible compromising situations, "because people rely on going up there [the State House] and dealing with people who are not, you know, singly motivated because of, you know, monies that are getting paid, or what have you."

Also, Lynch says, this investigation is another example of his determination to run his office by the book. He noted that during the campaign, reporters had cited his past State House lobbying for the Tillinghast, Licht, Perkins, Smith & Cohen law firm, representing clients such as Anheuser-Busch, R.J. Reynolds Tobacco — and CVS.

Lynch notes that as AG, he’s take actions that his former lobbying clients might oppose, supporting, for example, passage of tougher drunk-driving limits. "I’m bound to process," he says. "You do that process, determining what the facts in evidence are, then literally looking whatever laws we can apply — should we proceed? And that doesn’t matter whether you’re the Pope, a street urchin, or you know, the governor."

If voters really do look for results by an attorney general, this politically charged case may test Lynch’s professed commitment to fair play: charging people when there’s evidence and avoiding prosecutions if evidence is lacking. The results will be weighed not just by the AG’s political critics and the media, but the standards that Lynch has set for himself.

After all, one wouldn’t want to disappoint Spider-Man, or any of the action hero’s fans, no matter what their ages.

Brian C. Jones can be reached at brijudy@ids.net .