Episode 8: SPITZER

Todd Spitzer is the District Attorney for Orange County, California. He is known for his tough on crime stance and created a hate crimes unit filled with special prosecutors who know how to navigate the complicated maze of hate crime prosecution. DA Spitzer has gained the benchmark of having prosecuted more than twice the number of hate crimes of those previous DA’s over the last twenty-five years.

Episode Transcript

(00:05):
January thirtieth, nineteen thirty nine,during a two and a half hour speech,
German dictator Adolf Hitler tells a crowdof thousands that if another World War
were to break out, he predictedthe annihilation of the Jewish race in Europe.
Eight months later, Germany invaded Polandand World War Two began, and

(00:30):
Hitler continued his genocide of the Jewsinside Germany itself. The Elizas is the
famous stadium of Nuremberg. On Mayeighth, nineteen forty five, the war
in Europe ended chapter of this famoussouthern German city. The American flag blouted
out the Swastika after the dust settled. It was estimated that more than six

(00:52):
million Jews died in the Holocaust,but what didn't die was anti Semitism.
In fact, it flourished throughout historyand today, almost eighty years later,
anti Semitism has evolved and become evenmore dangerous, largely due to technology.
If Adolf Hitler had an Instagram account, the Holocaust would have happened a lot
quicker because the public would have beenconvinced a lot sooner. This is the

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iHeartRadio original podcast Hate Modern Anti SemitismI'm investigative journalist Steve Gregory in Los Angeles.
Tod Spitzer is the District Attorney forOrange County, California. He is
known for his tough on crime stanceand created a hate crimes unit filled with
special prosecutors who know how to navigatethe complicated maze of hate crime prosecution.

(01:45):
So I asked him, why wasthere a need for such a unit.
So the hate Crimes Unit was createdas more perception and reality in the sense
that we have always aggressively prosecuted hatecrimes since I took office four years ago.
But I felt it was symbolic toannounce a hate crimes unit so that
people would understand and be able toput their arms around the dedication that I

(02:09):
have and this office has to doingeverything we can to prevent and stamp out
hate. So while we were vigorouslyprosecuting hate crimes, in fact, I've
prosecuted more hate crimes in the lastfour years than the previous twenty five years
in this office, I symbolically wantedto create a unit so people would understand

(02:31):
and feel that, oh wow,the orange gun in DA's office is being
aggressive and we have a place togo if we file a police report that
we know will follow through on ouraccusations at a person engaged in hate.
What is your office's definition of ahate crime. Well, there's a hate
crime and there's a hate incident.So hate incident is really where somebody's expressed

(02:53):
hate, but it's more in linewith their First Amendment rights to say basically
almost anything you want. Where hatecrosses over into a crime is when you
commit an underlying crime like an assaultor a battery, and then it was
motivated by hate. There's a greatmisunderstanding about what a hate crime is.

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A hate crime is not a crimein and of itself, it's an enhancement.
In other words, you have anunderlying crime, and then if you
can determine that the motivation for committingthe underlying crime was hate, then you
can charge the enhancement of hate attachedto an independent crime. Sote. That's
what George Gascone got in trouble within la He said he wasn't going to

(03:42):
prosecute enhancements, and then suddenly somebodysaid, hey, George, hate crime
is not a crime in and ofitself, it's an enhancement. That's when
he changed his position. In OrangeCountry. We've always been very aggressive about
charging enhancements, but we're also quitefrankly, very protective about people's First Amendment
rights to express hate. As muchas I don't like hate speech, people

(04:09):
do have a First Amendment right inthis country to express themselves. So are
you seeing an increase of those typesof hate crimes as you just described them?
Are you seeing an increase? Oh, we've seen a tremendous increase in
hate crimes I think nationwide, certainlyin Orange County we have had a very

(04:29):
large and dramatic increase, especially inthe last three to four years since the
pandemic gets Asians. And do youhave any stats? I mean you're talking
about because a lot of people usethe pandemic now as a baseline and they're
starting to say pre pandemic post pandemic, So do you have a comparative pre
pandemic post pandemic. We certainly knowthe number of hate crimes that we've prosecuted

(04:58):
prior to the pandemic and after thepandemic. In fact, we report those
stats every single year to our HumanRelations Commission, so they're documented in our
Hate Crime Report. And we haveseen a dramatic increase post pandemic or during
the pandemic as against Asians. Asianhate went of dramatically. In fact,

(05:18):
it was a reason why the AsianPacific Island or community in Orange County got
very involved and very dramatic about makingsure and being very public about the fact
that Asian hate was not going tobe tolerated by their community in Orange County.
And we have a very very activeand engaged API community. And that's

(05:41):
what I was going to ask youis because one of the things that a
lot of agencies are noticing is thatthe reason the numbers are going up is
because people are starting to feel morecomfortable reporting these crimes and coming forwards.
So are you seeing that also ordo you think there is a hard number
of increased hate crimes. So therewas one hundred and fifty three incidents against

(06:01):
API in twenty twenty one, accordingto the Human Relations Report, which was
the highest number of hate incidents againstany ethnic community in twenty twenty one.
You compare that to twenty five incidentsanti Black and for anti Middle Eastern.

(06:23):
I mean, after nine to eleven, we saw very dramatic numbers go up
in terms of Middle Eastern community.To answer your question directly, I don't
know how we parse it out exactly, because I do believe that as the
public has become more educated about thefact that law enforcement will respond and wants

(06:44):
to be very proactive as against hateand hate crimes, I think people do
feel that there will be an audiencefor them to report a hate crime.
What I think people get very disappointedbecause they don't necessarily understand the law is
that just because he expresses hate,it doesn't mean it's a crime. A
swastika painted on a garage door isa hate crime because somebody has put especially

(07:10):
a Jewish family, somebody who hasa mazuza on their front door and a
swastika painted on their garage door,is that's going to be filed as a
hate crime if we have a suspect. But somebody who goes to a synagogue
and stands on the public sidewalk andyells hate speech against Jews as they're coming
out from a Friday night service ora Saturday Sabbath event, that necessarily isn't

(07:34):
going to be a hate crime.We're talking about anti Semitism in hate crimes.
But let's talk a little bit aboutanti Semitism and attacks on Jewish families
and the Jewish faith. Are youseeing any numbers there or any increases there?
So, the largest targeted populations inOrange County that have been drawn out
for hate have been African Americans,Jews, and the gay community. And

(08:01):
that's just been historically consistent. Ofcourse, we saw after nine to eleven
great attacks on Middle Easterners, andthen of course during the pandemic we saw
a huge spike against the Api community. Jews have always been targeted. I
mean this is quite frankly in myexperience since time immemorial, we have come

(08:24):
upon a date in the United Stateswhere the Goyam movement, the anti Jewish
movement, you know, is targetinga whole day against the Jewish community,
and it's organized. So we've alwaysseen an increase and a consistency excuse me,
against the Jewish community. So Iwould say it's it stays relatively consistent

(08:46):
against Jews. Do you have,I mean the same relationships with the Jewish
community as you do with the Asiancommunity. I have a very strong relationship.
I sat on the ADL, theAnti Defamation League board word of directors
at one time during my service inthe community. I think when I was
a county supervisor, and I havevery very close relationships with doctor Levy,

(09:09):
a rabbi who is the executive directorof the Anti Defamation League. I try
to stay on top of those issues. Orange County doesn't have a huge Jewish
community. It has a large Jewishcommunity, and I would say that the
Jewish community hasn't necessarily been very veryactive. But when you have, like,
for example, an incident that happenedin Laguna Woods last year where a

(09:33):
woman identified as a neo Nazi,she wore boot jack, wore a jacket
with a swastika on it, Sheparaded herself around the Laguna Woods community and
wanted to make sure that everybody knewthat she was a Jew hater. When
you have incidents like that, certainlythat brings great awareness to the community and

(09:56):
people start to become aware. Whenyou have swastikas painted on either synagogues or
what are known to be a Jewishhomes, then of course those are the
incidents rights to the top, bringa lot of attention and then they kind
of, you know, kind ofbe they're reabsorbed, if you will.
So I would just say that theJewish community has always been a target,

(10:18):
whether it's Orange County or many otherplaces in the United States. When a
synagogue is targeted for arson or abombing, just like an African American church,
you know, then of course you'regoing to have a high alert within
those communities where people think either copycator other kinds of events are going to

(10:39):
occur. But I would just sayacross the board, hate against the Jewish
community has been relatively consistent here.And you know, everything gets blamed historically
on the Jews by some community,you know, over time, So I
think it just it goes with theEban flow. So let's talk about the
mechanics of how you prosecute to hatecrime. In your office. You have

(11:03):
a reputation for being pretty tough oncrime in general, but on hate crimes.
Walk us through, especially with thishate crimes unit, whether it's in
you more symbolic or name only.But and that's usually under a special Special
Prosecutors division, right, something likethat, Right, my hate crimes unit
is embedded in my special prosecutions,got it? So what would be the

(11:24):
mechanics of that? So? Andthen I also ask our law enforcement agencies
around here are They pretty keenly awareof what those types of crimes are and
how to bring him to you andhow to package him for you. Yeah.
So every single law enforcement agency inOrange County has been trained by my
Hate Crimes Unit. Every law enforcementagency in Orange County knows that they are

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to bring any allegation of a hatecrime or a hate incident to our office.
We let them know, do nottry to figure that out in the
field. Okay, if you thinkit's a hate crime, even if you
think it's a hate and in chargeit as a hate crime, we will
decide whether it's a hate incident andwe can't file it. But let us

(12:07):
make that decision as a matter oflaw, as opposed to you in a
patrol function trying to make that decisionin the field. I want to be
the clearinghouse for every allegation and incidentwhere there's hate involved. I want my
lawyers to make that decision because Iwant to make sure nothing is missed.
There's just no room for hate inOrange County. I don't care who you

(12:30):
love, who you want to marry, You know who you want to be
in a relationship with, what yourskin color is, where you're from,
this office has made it very veryclear that hate will not be tolerated in
an Orange county. That's why Iwas so disappointed when my counterpart, you
know, one county above here inLos Angeles County, mister Gascone had initially
said when he assumed office he wasn'tgoing to follow a file hate crime enhancements.

(12:54):
So I'm glad he did a oneeighty on that. And he's very
very aggressive. I think all ofus as prosecutors have a responsibility to be
very aggressive. So what happens isthe case comes in the facts of the
case, the police report comes infrom the law enforcement agency, my hate
crime prosecutor, and that unit evaluatesthose facts and then we decide what charges

(13:18):
were able to file. As aresult, we have a case, for
example, called Mayfield, where misterMayfield, if he deserves even that title,
has two prior convictions for hate,two prior strikes. He then attacked
an African American woman who was pregnant. She was waiting on a bus stop

(13:39):
in the city of Fullerton. Shewas able to pepper spray him, defended
herself, she got away, thepolice recalled. They then left and he
came back to the location and triedto attack her again. He told her
in no uncertain terms she had noright as an African American woman to have
children and that he was going toquote unquote drop her baby. So we

(14:03):
now have prosecuted him for a thirdstrike hate crime. A judge in that
case who had that was going togive him less than three years in state
prison. I personally appeared in thatcase, argued that case. The judge
offered a very low sentence over myobjection. We appealed that case, and

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now the Court of Appeal ruled inour favor said it was an absolute hate
crime. We have a right toprosecute it. And now this hater,
who's the poster child of hate swastika, white supremacist attacks minorities, is looking
at thirty eight years to life inprison. Hate Modern Anti Semitism is a

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production of the KFI News Department foriHeartMedia Los Angeles and the iHeart podcast Network.
The program is produced by Steve Gregoryand Jacob Gonzalez. To learn more
about anti Semitism and how you canjoin the conversation, go to translate hate
dot Org. Let's translate hate dotOrg.