Criminal Justice Reform: Stop History from Repeating Itself

 

“Oregon liquor agency head resigns amid bourbon scandal” reads the headline in this week’s newspaper. The director of Oregon’s liquor regulatory agency announced his resignation from Oregon’s Liquor and Cannabis Commission. The article states, “The funneling of the top-end whiskey to leaders of the state agency deprived well-heeled whisky aficionados of the bourbons and violated several Oregon state statutes, including one that prohibits public officials from using confidential information for personal gain, according to the commission’s investigation.”

It’s a familiar story coming from a neighboring state. I prosecuted an almost mirror-image case that resulted in the stoppage of a similar corrupt practice by the Washington State Liquor Control Board. Oregon officials could have learned from what happened in Washington by reading Roadways to Justice: Reforming the Criminal Justice System. Here’s an excerpt from the book: 

“The crusade to end public corruption wasn’t restricted to the police payoff system. In July 1971, the county grand jury, besides charging public officials involved in the payoff system also indicted the Washington State Liquor Control Board members—Chairman Jack C. Hood, Leroy Hittle, Donald D. Eldridge, and Garland Sponburgh—with grand larceny. Specifically, they were charged with appropriating state liquor and liquor decanters for their own use and with fraudulent appropriation of liquor and decanters. The Liquor Board members treated the state liquor like it was their own property, distributing it for political favors and events, including the governor’s Christmas party. All but Sponburgh were also charged with using their official positions to secure special privileges—obtaining liquor “without cost to themselves.” These two offenses were alleged to have been committed between January 1, 1968, and September 28, 1971.”

The account of what happened in the Washington case can be found in Roadways to Justice. As it is put in the introduction to Roadways, “This retrospective is intended to provide inspiration and guidance on how to achieve meaningful reform of the criminal justice system, and, equally important, how to avoid repeating the mistakes of the past.