Two have handled many high-profile prosecutions
By Anne Krueger
UNION-TRIBUNE STAFF WRITER March 11, 2002 When District Attorney Paul Pfingst selected the team to prosecute the man accused of killing Danielle van Dam, he turned to two veterans who've been involved in numerous high-profile cases. Prosecutor Jeff Dusek, who will be marking 25 years in the San Diego County District Attorney's Office this month, has handled more death penalty cases than any other lawyer in the office. George "Woody" Clarke, a San Diego prosecutor for 20 years, is a nationally recognized expert on DNA evidence, complicated scientific data now frequently used in criminal cases. His expertise has been recruited by Los Angeles prosecutors, who made him part of their team in the murder trial of O.J. Simpson. In a case that has drawn national attention, the two men will face their first major legal test today when they appear in court to present evidence in a preliminary hearing for 50-year-old David Westerfield. The design engineer, who lived two houses down the street from the van Dam family, is charged with kidnapping and killing 7-year-old Danielle. She was reported missing by her parents Feb. 2 and her body was found more than three weeks later behind a clump of oak trees in Dehesa. Westerfield is being represented by attorneys Steven Feldman and Robert Boyce, longtime defense lawyers who also carry a reputation for legal skills and tenaciousness in the San Diego legal community. Dusek, 52, was once described in court papers as being part of an " 'A' team" of prosecutors and investigators who had been assigned to handle the retrial of six gang members in the killing of a San Diego police officer. Dusek's boss, James Pippin, said he's confident Dusek and Clarke will handle their latest assignment well. "We've got the 'A' team," Pippin said. Team player Even before he became a lawyer, Dusek was a team player. He spent two years as a pitcher for a Chicago White Sox minor league team before being released. He then attended law school at Washington and Lee University in Lexington, Va., before returning to Southern California. Having grown up in San Clemente, Dusek knew where he wanted to work. He got a job at the San Diego District Attorney's Office, and he's spent his entire career there. "I love this job. This is the best job in the world," Dusek said in a brief interview. "You get to prosecute people who have violated our laws, violated society's rules and violated other people. We get to hold them accountable for what they've done. That's a good feeling." Despite his lengthy tenure in the office, Dusek has never aspired to be an administrator instead of a trial attorney, Pippin said. "He's pretty much all business," Pippin said. "He just enjoys trying cases." Dusek's cases have involved some of the most horrific crimes in San Diego County. Three men and one woman are now on California's death row awaiting execution as the result of cases he prosecuted. In a fifth death penalty case, Phillip Lee Jackson was sentenced to life in prison in 1996 after jurors deadlocked over whether he should be executed for beating two elderly women to death. Dusek prosecuted the case of Ramon Rogers, who was sentenced to death in 1997 for the murders of his Navy buddy and two ex-girlfriends. Police began investigating Rogers after they found the fingers and jaw of one of his former girlfriends in a storage area of his College Area apartment. Opponent's view Jeffrey Reichert, an alternate public defender who represented Rogers, said Dusek is an excellent lawyer. "I would call him thoroughly efficient in almost every aspect of his practice. I can't remember any time when he was unprepared for any legal issue or factual question," Reichert said. "I thought he was ethical and aboveboard." Just last week, Dusek was teaching a seminar on prosecuting death penalty cases at a meeting of the California District Attorneys Association. Prosecutors have filed special circumstances in Westerfield's case reserving the option of seeking his execution. That decision will be made in the weeks after the preliminary hearing. It was Clarke's work on a death-penalty case in 1989 that led him to his expertise in using DNA as evidence in criminal cases. Clarke, 50, became interested in the field through his assignment as co-prosecutor in the murder trial of David Allen Lucas. (Feldman was a member of the defense team.) Lucas, a Spring Valley carpet cleaner was convicted of the murders of three people between 1979 and 1984 and is on death row. Although DNA evidence couldn't be used in the Lucas case, Clarke grasped its power as a forensic tool at a time when the technique's legitimacy was being tested in the criminal courts. Because of his ensuing reputation as a DNA expert, Clarke was asked to join the Simpson prosecution team in 1995. He said in an interview after Simpson was acquitted that the trial helped to advance the acceptance of DNA evidence. "In my view, at least," Clarke said, "the DNA results in this case were so compelling that it may have been the reason the defense decided to shift tactics to one of conspiracy and the planting of evidence." After the Simpson trial concluded, Los Angeles prosecutor Christopher Darden wrote a book about the case in which he condescendingly described Clarke as a typical prosecutor who wore off-the-rack suits and $59 Florsheim shoes. "That always disappointed me," Clarke jokingly responded. "I only paid $49 for those shoes." |
