While former Inglewood Mayor Roosevelt Dorn was in a Los Angeles Superior Court accepting a guilty plea to a misdemeanor charge of conflict of interest, the Supreme Court of California was issuing its long-awaited ruling that Dorn had committed no crime, thus opening a whole new round of legal activity in this 18-month-old fight.

On the morning of Jan. 25, Dorn was in Judge George Lomeli’s courtroom accepting an offer from the district attorney to plead guilty to a misdemeanor, despite having been originally charged by the D.A. last summer with three felonies in connection with his use of a home improvement loan program he helped establish for Inglewood city executive employees.

At that same time, the state Supreme Court handed down its 63-page ruling in Cathy Lexin et al., a case identical to Dorn’s that resulted in the conviction of eight elected representatives on a San Diego municipal board who voted to establish a benefit for San Diego city employees and availed themselves of the benefits, as well. The eight were tried and convicted of conflict of interest charges in the San Diego Superior Court. They appealed to the appellate court, which upheld their conviction and then appealed to the Supreme Court, which, on Jan. 25, overturned the appellate court’s decision and dismissed all charges against seven of the eight, ruling that those officials’ use of the benefits for which they voted was not a conflict of interest.

Ben Pesta, Dorn’s attorney who learned of the ruling in an e-mail that evening after Dorn’s guilty plea to the now non-crime, said, “There was no way we could have known about the Lexin ruling before then. I would be much happier if that case had been decided the day before.

“I am giving the ruling a close reading to decide exactly how it bears on the mayor’s case and I am considering several options in light of this court decision,” Pesta said.

The attorney said his options include filing a motion to withdraw Dorn’s plea or petitioning the appellate court for a writ of habeous corpus and having the entire matter dismissed, as was done with the Lexin Seven.

In its ruling, the Supreme Court gave great deference to the attorney general’s opinion that the Lexin petitioners’ actions did not violate the government’s 1090 code that defines a conflict of interest. The court went on to rule that, pursuant to code 87100, “council members have a right to participate in their own salary discussion and can encourage and have their salaries raised and can vote to raise their salaries.”

The court also wrote: “Public officials will often be part of their own constituencies, at once governors and the governed. In a government drawn from the people as a whole, it is inevitable that government benefits may flow to citizen-senators as well as everyday citizens. Public officials often may have a stake in the decisions they make. ... They must be entrusted to enact laws, adopt rules and make decisions that affect both their constituents and themselves as members of that constituency.”

The court went on to state: “So long as the stakes are equal — so long as public officials and their constituents have access to benefits ‘on the same terms and conditions,’ without respect to officials’ status — there is no conflict of interest.” 

Dorn voted for a home loan benefit for all Inglewood executive city employees, including department heads and other administrators, all of whom constitute his constituency in this matter. He, as the city’s chief executive, availed himself of the benefit on the same terms and conditions imposed on all the other executives who chose to use the benefit. Ergo, Dorn committed no crime, sayeth the Supreme Court.

I tried to reach D.A. Steve Cooley to discuss the Lexin ruling with him and to basically ask him two questions: What did he know about the Supreme Court ruling? and When did he know it? But I was told he was out of town and unavailable. I did not receive a call back from a high-ranking publically paid lawyer over there, as I requested.

The Supreme Court ruled against the eighth Lexin petitioner because he, as president of the board, voted for and received benefits designed solely for himself. Even the president who would succeed him could not get the same benefits as he. The court ruled that his action was a conflict of interest and sent him back to face the consequences.