Some years back, as the story goes, a female deputy prosecutor stood before a judge in Grays Harbor Superior Court and the judge wouldn’t hear her case simply because she was wearing pants. She was ordered to go put on a dress.
Today, the Prosecutor’s Office is nearly split equally between men and women prosecutors and Acting Chief Deputy Prosecutor Katie Svoboda is hoping to be the county’s first elected female prosecutor.
Svoboda, who wears pants whenever she wants and the judges don’t seem to mind, says that just about every attorney has heard the “pants story.” For the record, the judge in question hasn’t been a judge for years and the deputy prosecutor left the county long ago — but the story persists.
“There’s also a story around the same time period when a judge was so impressed by a female attorney that he said, ‘It’s kind of like a dog riding a bike. It’s not that he can do it well, just that the dog can do it at all.’
“Yeah, that’s about as insulting as you think it is.” said Svoboda.
“I was naive going in because I didn’t really think about it, but my husband told me this was going to be a big deal for folks,” Svoboda said. “And, for some people, it will be good and exciting and there will be some people who say, ‘Katie doesn’t sound like a boy’s name.’
“For most professional women, you want to be the best candidate. You don’t want people to just support you because they want to put a woman in the office. As a woman back in the ‘you can’t wear pants in court’ days, I get that this is a big deal. I am the best candidate for the job. I’ve been preparing for this for a long time. I’ve been told I’m too soft. If you and I are having a conversation, you’re not getting trial Svoboda. I’m not coming at you as if I was trying to convict you of something.”
HIRED 2004
Svoboda has served as deputy prosecutor since 2004. When Prosecutor Stew Menefee retired in September of last year, Svoboda was his top pick. The political party of the retiring official is asked to put forth three names for a replacement. Menefee is a Democrat. Svoboda had attended meetings of the Grays Harbor Democrats for several years and serves on its executive board. When the Democrats were given a choice of candidates for prosecutor, Svoboda is the only name they wanted on the list, questioning the credentials of former Prosecutor Mike Spencer, who sought the appointment.
Svoboda and two “sham” candidates, who weren’t really interested in the job, got on the appointment list. The county commissioners refused to go along with the Democrats, calling it a “political ploy.” And since Gov. Jay Inslee also refused to appoint the position, the prosecutor’s position has been on pause for more than a year now, with Acting Prosecutor Gerald Fuller in the role and an official Attorney General’s opinion stating that the status quo is acceptable until the General Election.
In the primary election, Svoboda was the clear frontrunner, winning with 54.35 percent of the ballots cast. Both advanced to the General Election.
Svoboda’s consolation prize was being named Acting Chief Criminal Deputy, a position she’s had for about a year now.
“I do feel I deserved the appointment,” Svoboda said. “It’s just slowed down the office to evolve to the next vision and go to a more modernized office. We have the ability to do all these things. For instance, why spend $3 a packet when you can file court documents electronically and you know it’s there and get a summary right away that it’s been transmitted? … I want to be able to give our deputies remote desktops. Right now, if I want to be able to work on a brief at home or at a conference, I need to email it to myself. I just got my work email on my phone. Like, welcome to 2006.”
Svoboda says she’s assumed oversight of the office budget and personnel issues. She worked to help find a new deputy prosecutor to work on civil cases. She notes that the office has had turnover in recent years, with 14 or more deputy prosecutors all resigning or retiring, many taking better paying jobs elsewhere.
“My opponent keeps trying to frame it so that there is an unruly office and there’s been no stability, no leadership and no training,” Svoboda said. “Well, we’ve just come through a terrible economic slump and Grays Harbor is always one of the last counties to turn around. We’ve had several people who left that I think they wouldn’t have left if we could have afforded to keep them.”
As part of this year’s budget process with the county commissioners, Svoboda wants to push to create a higher starting wage for deputy prosecutors. Looking at eight comparable counties, Svoboda says the county is last. Statewide, the county ranks near the bottom.
“We’re not losing people because they don’t like the office or the office is not professionally competitive,” Svoboda said. “We have a good reputation around the state. We recently got a thank-you from a chief criminal attorney for the City of Seattle who liked the way we train our attorneys. He said, ‘Thanks so much’ after hiring one of our brightest — and that hurts.”
TRAINING
Svoboda says she received “excellent” training from Menefee and Fuller and has no complaints. Her case load has focused on prosecuting crimes against children and serious felonies, including several murder cases.
Working with kids who have been exposed to violent acts has been especially challenging, she notes, “You have to develop a thick skin or a way to compartmentalize things.”
Spencer has criticized her and says she needs more training before assuming the role of prosecutor. She fires back that she has more experience right now than he did when he first assumed the role of prosecutor back in 1982.
“I believe I’m a lifelong learner and I don’t think there’s anybody who couldn’t use more training,” she said. “I don’t know everything.”
She admits that she doesn’t have much experience on the civil side of things, but she wants to learn more and do more.
“I’ve done a very tiny amount of civil law,” she said. “As a lawyer, you aren’t licensed as civil lawyer or a tax attorney. A lawyer is a lawyer. I have the ability to do the research. I recently helped a department head look up something for the Family Leave Act, which is something that Civil Prosecutor Jim Baker, I’m sure, could have answered off the top of his head. It took me 30 minutes of research to be confident I knew the answer. It doesn’t put me at a disadvantage. It’s not like we’re playing a different game. I have no hesitation if I were to handle a civil case. I did a civil commitment for mental health issues — and its something I started from scratch and it all went swimmingly.”
She says she likely wouldn’t have gotten involved in the dispute between the judges and the county commissioners, saying that she agreed with Menefee’s decision to stay out of it, based on the information she has.
Spencer has the endorsement from the majority of the Grays Harbor Bar Association.
“I have not courted the defense bar because I’m not surprised that they would want to have one of their own as the prosecutor,” she says, although Spencer rebuts that it’s been 15 years since he defended a felony.
“I’ve recently changed some of the drug case guidelines and the defense bar says that’s not the way we do it,” she said. “Well, it’s not my job to help out the defense bar.”
She says she has the support of most of the deputy prosecutors in her office. She says that if Spencer wins, there’s a fear among deputy prosecutors that he will come in and “clean house.”
Asked if she would quit if Spencer wins, she says, “I’ve not put a lot of thought into that. Maybe because it’s too big of a what-if. I know I would have November and December to really evaluate. I wouldn’t just quit. I have so much invested here with my family here and supporters in law enforcement. I wouldn’t just pack my toys and go home. But, Mike might just tell me to pack my bags.”
Spencer says he would give Svoboda a fair shot.
“Some of his supporters have told me the opposite,” Svoboda said. “(Deputy prosecutors) are all at will (employees) so there are no guarantees.”
Svoboda says she knows their Prosecutor’s Office has been under fire from some law enforcement agencies for declining to press charges at times. Hoquiam Police Chief Jeff Myers, for instance, has a thick binder on his desk of cases he says should have been prosecuted.
Svoboda says she’s aware of the file, but never looked through it.
“I would like to have a sit down and have a conversation,” Svoboda said. “Either it’s been declined and the deputy didn’t do a good enough job explaining why it was declined or we do have a backlog in the office because there are more cases than we can handle. … It is probably easier to file than to wash your hands of it. We have limited resources. One of the things you have to take into account is every time you are filing a case, you’re calling a jury, you’re spending the public’s money. If it’s a case that doesn’t have merit, those have to be weeded out. Also, to accuse someone of something you don’t believe you can prove doesn’t make sense. There’s guidelines for prosecutors that we adhere to. The longer we do this, the easier it is to make those decisions.”
She adds that the office is still down a prosecutor who would handle felonies and Fuller and herself have picked up quite a large caseload.
She admits that the office does need to do a better job training its deputy prosecutors, particularly in District Court, where the new prosecutors start out.
“I was the third deputy prosecutor in District Court when I was hired in 2004 and I don’t think I saw much of Stew or anyone else for the better part of a year. If you look at how many defense attorneys are on the contract and how many we have, we’re outnumbered two or three to one. And it shows in our caseload.”
ACCESS
Svoboda says she works for the people and will enforce open government laws. “I was asked, ‘If you’re elected who do you work for?’ Well, I only work for the people. I work for the voters. I don’t work for the county commissioners and part of the job is to counsel them and represent them. It’s not the same, as they can’t direct my legal opinions.”
For instance, Svoboda said that the Prosecutor’s Office gave some advice concerning a recent pay-for-access ordinance approved by the county commissioners, but it wasn’t heeded. And, the commissioners admitted in public they were going to do it anyway.
“It’s frustrating (as in) the recent Weyerhaeuser ordinance (when) they don’t always take the counsel to heart,” she said.
Svoboda notes “any attorney-client privilege is gone as soon as they talk about it publicly.”
“I believe in open meetings,” she added. “I believe in transparent government, working in an office that is subject to public disclosure. I am always conscious that anything I do, anything I produce, with the exception of a very small amount of work product, can always be turned over to the public or discovery to a defense attorney. If it’s even close, I say disclose it.”
See both Svoboda and Spencer talk during the next Montesano Chamber of Commerce meeting, noon, Tuesday, Oct. 14 at Montesano City Hall.
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