A coalition of activist and community groups, including the American Civil Liberties Union of Southern California, is asking the California Attorney General’s Office to investigate the Orange County District Attorney’s Office for systemic bias in light of racial comments made by DA Todd Spitzer while discussing a capital murder case.

The civil rights groups in a Friday morning letter wrote that comments Spitzer made while deliberating over whether to seek the death penalty against a Black man accused of killing a White man and woman have “illuminated injustices within the county’s criminal legal system.”

“This controversy serves as just the latest confirmation of what has been apparent for years: the policies and practices of the OCDA are stained by systemic racism and bias that produce measurable harms against Black and Brown people in Orange County,” the letter from more than a dozen activist groups reads.

Officials with the California Attorney General’s Office confirmed they were reviewing the letter, but did not comment further.

Spitzer in a statement responding to the letter accused the civil rights groups of using “the same playbook we’ve seen time and time again.”

“They are pro-criminal and anti-victim and their only interest is in ruining our safe communities,” Spitzer said.

Spitzer during an Oct. 1 meeting about whether to seek the death penalty against Jamon Buggs – a Black man accused of killing a White man and woman – asked about the race of Buggs’ former girlfriends and said he “knows many Black people who enhance their status by only dating ‘White women,’ ” according to recently released internal memos.

Spitzer has said he was trying to determine the racial overtones of the case, though he has acknowledged that he “used an example that was insensitive” and described his own comments as “inartful.”

A county law enforcement watchdog agency – the Orange County Office of Independent Review – has already opened an investigation into Spitzer’s comments, though the group does not have the power to discipline the DA’s office. Pete Hardin – one of Spitzer’s challengers in the June 7 primary for the district attorney’s seat – has urged Spitzer to resign in light of the comments.

Spitzer framed the letter from the ACLU and other civil rights groups in political terms, saying that he was “not going to let these blatantly political tactics ruin our public safety.”

“They did this in San Francisco when they elected a public defender as District Attorney. They did this in Los Angeles when they elected a woke District Attorney,” Spitzer said. “And they ruined those communities. Now they’re trying to elect a criminal lawyer to be District Attorney in Orange County.”

ACLU officials described the racial comments in the Buggs’ case as part of a “pattern” from the OC DA’s office and other law enforcement agencies that they alleged was “modeled from the top down.”

“It brings up the need to confront the systemic racism ingrained in our criminal legal system, locally and statewide,” said Jennifer Rojas, a senior policy advocate and organizer at the ACLU of Southern California.

Rojas pointed to a recent ACLU report that found Black people in Orange County were overrepresented among individuals charged with crimes and more likely to face time behind bars for low-level offenses compared to other racial groups. The report was based on Orange County data from 2017 and 2018, before Spitzer was elected to head the DA’s office. ACLU officials say the DA’s office has not turned over to them more recent data.

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