Editor Resigns Amid Squabble p.

By: M.L. Stein

Editor Resigns Amid Squabble p.
But Alameda Newspaper Group editor denies his sharp-tongued
response to a lawyer's letter forced his departure
DAVID BURGIN, EDITOR in chief of the Alameda Newspaper Group in the San Francisco East Bay area, resigned recently amid a squabble with the county bar association over an Oakland Tribune series that charged a judge with handing out lenient sentences to child molesters.
His departure followed a bar uproar over the series and a fiery letter from Burgin to an attorney, who had objected to the stories and scalding anti-lawyer statements by the editor.
Burgin, who also is senior vice president of ANG, a part of the Media News Group, denied that his resignation was connected to the controversy. So did ANG publisher J. Allan Meath.
In an April 12 letter to Oakland attorney Edwin A. Clancy, Jr., Burgin defended the Tribune series, adding: "And the last thing I'm going to do ? after more than 30 years of newspapering and dealing with legal eagles the likes of you ? is put up with a bunch of cheap shots and bullshit from someone in the law business, a profession sick with greed and dishonesty."
The letter started out, "Where'd you go to law school? I know it wasn't Harvard."
The controversy began last December with the Tribune series in which it was alleged that veteran Superior Court Judge Stanley Golde, through plea bargaining in 1991 and the first six months of 1992, allowed 59% of child molesters before him to walk out of court without serving a single day behind bars.
In a story headed "Golde Rush for Sex Offenders," it was further reported that ANG's three-month investigation showed that Golde's sentencing record was equally lenient for those convicted of such offenses as rape, statutory rape, sodomy, oral copulation, sexual battery and child molestation.
According to the writer, Susan Marquez Owen, Golde's average sentence was less than half of that of other judges.
The articles prompted a study of Golde's sentencing record by the Alameda County Bar Association (ACBA). Its report defended Golde and contended that the Tribune's series "broach, but do not fully explore deficiencies in the criminal justice system. These are real problems but are they the responsibility of an individual judge?"
The ACBA committee's report attributed the heavy use of plea bargaining in some criminal proceedings to a huge number of cases which overwhelmed a court system with insufficient resources.
Golde was described as an "excellent judge who is the one individual that has contributed most to enabling an impoverished system to function . . . as well as it has."
The committee also argued that the series did not take into account pre-sentencing jail time and "credit for time served."
Meanwhile, the East Bay chapter of the National Organization for Women demanded Golde's recall, while a number of female attorneys and male judges defended him.
A March Tribune story on the ACBA report said that the group's sentencing figures gave even more credence to the newspaper's original series.
Burgin issued a statement that termed the report "nothing more than a pack of lawyers trying to curry favor with Judge Golde and a heavy-handed attempt to head off any recall movement."
"Long ago," he said, "I concluded that it was oxymoronic when the legal profession began to lecture on ethics, especially when the First Amendment was involved."
In his monthly message to the membership, ACBA president Michael Loeb accused Burgin of "lawyer-
bashing."
"Why did Mr. Burgin respond by smearing the entire legal profession?" Loeb asked. "This tirade was completely unnecessary. More importantly, it appears to me at least, to be completely contrary to the standards which mark professional journalism."
The issue flared up again in early May when Oakland attorney Lincoln Mintz read Burgin's letter to Clancy at a bar association meeting. In the letter, the ANG editorial chief also lambasted the ACBA's report on Golde as a "prime example of low-rent politics, a shameless display."
Mintz said he was a journalism major as an undergraduate and has a "tremendous respect for the journalistic profession, but Mr. Burgin has a tremendous disrespect for the legal profession. His statements are outrageous."
Clancy said he was stunned by Burgin's reply to his letter, "which I thought reasonably stated my objections to his attacks on the legal establishment."
Both Mintz and Clancy said that following Mintz's exposure of the letter, several lawyers telephoned protests to Meath. Asked if he thought that the pressure had forced Burgin's resignation, he replied, "The timing is certainly interesting."
However, Meath told E&P that neither the calls nor Burgin's letter had anything to do with his resignation.
"This had been worked out before," he added. "Dave wants to do something else. His leaving now is just a coincidence."
Asked if he approved of the letter to Clancy, Meath observed: "Well, that's Dave's style. Would I have written it in the same way? No."
Meath said he "backed Dave 100%" and also stood solidly behind the series, which appeared as well in the four other East Bay ANG dailies.
"We're not finished with this story yet," the publisher declared. "There will be follow-ups. Keep in mind that Mintz is a defense lawyer. Defense lawyers love lenient judges because it makes them look good."
Burgin expressed annoyance and bitterness when contacted by E&P. An avid golfer, he said he had resigned to pursue a long-held desire to publish a golf magazine.
"My going at this time is entirely a coincidence," he said. "Yet, I've gotten 9,000 calls about this lawyer thing. I've spent 33 years as a newspaperman and I think I've done some interesting things. I would like to read about that instead of somebody trying to make something out of my leaving. I just want to leave quietly and gracefully. I'm getting out of the newspaper business and I don't give a damn whether I ever get back in. I did my best."
However, Burgin, a former editor of the Houston Post and Dallas Times-Herald, who has a reputation for feistiness and aggressive, hard-hitting journalism, made no apologies for his letter to Clancy.
"If I had it to do all over again, I would write an even stronger letter," he stated.
Burgin was succeeded by Robert Cochnar, formerly ANG's editor.