Prosecutors: Elected vs: appointed

PROSECUTORS: Elected vs Appointed WHAT IS PUBLIC JUSTICE?

Los Angeles, CA—U.S. Attorney Debra Yang describes the public justice system as "doing the right thing for the public, encapsulating what issues are facing the public" Appearing on the Emmy Award winning Full Disclosure public affairs program in a two-part interview Yang was asked about the differences between local prosecutors and the U. S. Attorney. She said by not being elected to her position she is free to do justice because she does not have to raise funds and does not have to ask the community to support an election campaign.


This Part 1 of the Full Disclosure interview with Debra Yang is set to air world-wide on the Internet 24 hours a day, 7 days a week starting on Tuesday, July 14, 2004 on the STREAMING page at http://www.fulldisclosure.net The first 30 days the program will be provided to viewers FREE as a public service and thereafter available online in the program catalog. The program will also be featured on 40 cable systems throughout California for the next six months.


Yang also noted that when local and state prosecutors decline to prosecute cases, the U. S. Attorney can become involved if there is Federal money or laws involved. She pointed out that the U.S. Attorney has a tremendous amount of discretion over what kinds of crimes to address, what kinds of cases to bring and the like.


Full Disclosure host Leslie Dutton has been conducting a series of interviews with local prosecutors and investigators involved in the Belmont Learning Center investigations. The series is entitled “BELMONT: The World's Most Expensive High School". Costs to date for the development are $175 million, which was financed in 1997 with non-voter approved, tax-exempt bonds known as Certificates of Participation (COP's). The Los Angeles Unified School Board has already approved an additional $110 million for remediation of environment hazards on the Belmont campus, which was built on top of one-thousand closed oil wells and is plagued with methane gas and hydrogen sulfide. On Tuesday, June 22, 2004 the LAUSD board approved the project’s environmental impact report, paving the way for completion of the stymied project.


This program and other Belmont programs can be viewed at http://www.fulldisclosure.net via video streaming on demand. A cable channel guide with airtimes is available on the website.