10/12/04

LC041012

Val Zavala>> Tonight on Life and Times --

There's no question that DNA evidence is a powerful tool in
fighting crime, but would Proposition 69 go too far?

Karl Manheim>> We might as well just take the DNA of everybody
in California and just put that on the internet and make it
publicly accessible because that's what Proposition 69 is going
to do.

Val>> And then, from roses to redevelopment. The history of
Pasadena in photographs taken from identical locations, but a
lifetime apart.

Those stories and more straight ahead on tonight's Life and
Times.

Life and Times is made possible through the generous support of
the L.K. Whittier Foundation dedicated to improving the quality
of life by supporting innovative endeavors in the fields of
medicine, health, science and education.

And by a generous grant from Jim and Anne Rothenberg.

Val>> We've seen it on cop shows a thousand times. A suspect
is brought into the station, booked and fingerprinted. But now
imagine that if, in addition to fingerprints, suspects must give
police a DNA sample. That's what Proposition 69 is calling for.
Stephanie O'Neill Noe looks at the pros and cons of DNA
sampling. Police say it will give them a powerful crime-
fighting tool. Civil rights attorneys say it will lead to
abuse.

Stephanie O'Neill Noe>> Inside DNA's microscopic strands are
the genetic secrets of who you are. Your DNA code reveals
physical and mental traits and predispositions toward diseases.
DNA is also some of the strongest evidence to date linking an
individual to a crime. It was DNA that led to the conviction in
August of Mark Wayne Rathbun, the notorious Belmont Shores
rapist who attacked more than a dozen women from 1997 to 2002.

Steve Cooley>> He was a convicted felon. If 69 had been the
law, his DNA would have been profiled. He would have been in
the database. One woman would have been raped. He would have
been identified and arrested and twelve women would not have
been raped.

Stephanie O'Neill Noe>> Los Angeles District Attorney, Steve
Cooley, is among those in law enforcement supporting Proposition
69. The measure on the November ballot would greatly expand
California's existing criminal DNA databank. Right now,
California authorities draw a DNA sample from every person
convicted of a serious felony such as rape and murder. You have
a database right now?

Steve Cooley>> We do.

Stephanie O'Neill Noe>> And why isn't that database good
enough?

Steve Cooley>> That database is restricted to a small number of
violent and serious offenses. It doesn't cover the full panoply
of all felons convicted. You know, thirty-four states have all-
felon databases and they are solving unsolved cases and
apprehending criminals, much more quickly than we are because
they have a larger capacity to identify these individuals.

Stephanie O'Neill Noe>> Proposition 69 calls for expanding
California's DNA collection to include anyone convicted of any
felony. Then in 2009, the measure would go even further,
requiring DNA samples from every adult arrested for any felony.

Karl Manheim>> We might as well just take the DNA of everybody
in California and just put that on the internet and make it
publicly accessible because that's what Proposition 69 is going
to do.

Stephanie O'Neill Noe>> Constitutional Law Professor, Karl
Manheim, is the Director of the Program for Law and Technology
at Loyola Law School. He says Proposition 69 casts an over-
broad net. What privacy issues are you concerned about?

Karl Manheim>> Once my DNA is on file, it can be used by
insurance companies to deny me coverage for high-risk illnesses.
It can be used by employers who don't want to employ people who
have a propensity for certain illnesses and diseases. It can be
used for a lot of pernicious reasons that have nothing to do
with law enforcement.

Steve Cooley>> There's been no abuse of our DNA database or
anyone else's database in the other states where it exists,
which is almost all of them, so that's a false claim and it's
something that should be disregarded out of hand.

Stephanie O'Neill Noe>> Right now, all DNA samples are handled
by several government agencies which analyze them, store them,
then share them with state and federal authorities. But critics
warn that Proposition 69 requires privately-run labs handle
backlog samples. This, Manheim fears, leaves open the
possibility of a breach, intentional or otherwise.

Karl Manheim>> The analysis is done by private for-profit
groups, testing agencies, and there's no sanction on them if
they were to misuse or to mishandle your information. Remember,
we're not talking about physical samples. We're talking about
digits. We're talking about computer data, which is really easy
to duplicate, to transfer, to disseminate, cross the internet,
and to lose.

Stephanie O'Neill Noe>> Bruce Harrington, a retired lawyer and
businessman from Newport Beach, is a key supporter of
Proposition 69.

Bruce Harrington>> My brother and his wife were murdered in
August of 1980 in a home break-in, sexual assault and murder,
that at the time baffled everybody.

Stephanie O'Neill Noe>> Keith and Patty Harrington were twenty-
four year old newlyweds married for only three months. He was a
fourth year resident at UCI Med School. She was a pediatric
nurse. The two were spending the summer at his father's home in
Laguna Niguel when the nighttime attack occurred.

Bruce Harrington>> It's the worst phone call you could possibly
imagine as a sibling or a parent. My dad says, "I think Keith
and Patty have been killed." He was distraught. He was not
really coherent as far as what he was saying. He had discovered
their bodies approximately three days after the murders
occurred.

Stephanie O'Neill Noe>> It wasn't until the year 2000, twenty
years after the attack, that DNA evidence linked the couple's
murder to a suspect who is still at large, a serial killer known
as the Original Nightstalker. He committed at least thirteen
other murders and scores of rapes statewide. The killer's
deadly spree stopped abruptly in 1986. Authorities believe that
he's either dead or in prison. In the meantime, the murder of
Keith and Patty Harrington remains unsolved.

Bruce Harrington>> We have tested against all DNA databases
throughout the United States and no matches. But not every
state has a robust all-felon database. Thirty-four do, but
California is one of the few that does not have an all-felon
database.

Stephanie O'Neill Noe>> Foes of the measure, however, believe
that expanding the DNA database to include nonviolent and white
collar felonies makes no sense.

Karl Manheim>> If you write a bad check, you're in the DNA
database. Now how are they going to use your DNA to solve the
crime of a bad check? I mean, it's not the type of crime where
blood samples or other types of biological samples are left at
the crime scene.

Lee Baca>> The guy that writes the check could get into a bank
robbery.

Stephanie O'Neill Noe>> Los Angeles County Sheriff, Lee Baca.

Lee Baca>> And I think it's simple that, if you're going to
commit a crime, you need to know you're taking a big risk.

Stephanie O'Neill Noe>> But civil libertarians are deeply
concerned about collecting DNA samples from people who have
never been convicted of a crime and who may be falsely arrested.
They point out that annually fifty thousand California arrests
result in no criminal charges. Opponents also warn that
political protesters such as those marching at national
conventions and even striking workers on picket lines can be
arrested for such felonies as failure to disburse. And whether
the charges stick or not, Proposition 69 would require their DNA
go into the databank alongside those of murderers and rapists.

Ramona Ripston>> We're beginning to talk about innocent people.
That's what we're concerned about.

Stephanie O'Neill Noe>> Ramona Ripston is Executive Director of
the ACLU in Southern California. She worries that the measure
doesn't require the government to expunge the DNA information of
innocent or exonerated people. The burden instead is left to
the individual.

Ramona Ripston>> You get all this information together, you
take it to a judge, and if a judge says no, I'm not going to
take it out, it cannot be appealed. That judge has the final
decision.

Karl Manheim>> If this had been done properly, if some minor
amendments were made to the existing law, that could probably
accomplish all the legitimate penal purposes without wholesale
invasion of individual rights.

Stephanie O'Neill Noe>> Bruce Harrington, meanwhile, says Keith
and Patty's deaths would be somewhat avenged for him and his
family with the passage of Proposition 69.

Bruce Harrington>> The big satisfaction will come if, through
passage of the initiative, the crime ultimately will be solved.
That would really be very, very, very satisfying.

Stephanie O'Neill Noe>> I'm Stephanie O'Neill Noe for Life and
Times.

Val>> DNA can also prove that a person is innocent. Since DNA
testing began, about 150 inmates have been released from prison
because DNA testing proved they didn't do it.

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Val>> He's emerged as the pre-eminent historian for the Golden
State. His books sweep across a century of California history
and Kevin Starr is also an impassioned spokesman on the forces
that have shaped California culture. Kevin Starr is also the
State Librarian. Saul Gonzalez talked with Starr about his
latest book which focuses on the 1990's and early twenty-first
century, a decade that includes immigration battles and an actor
turned governor.

Saul Gonzalez>> Kevin Starr, thank you for joining us on Life
and Times.

Kevin Starr>> Thank you, Saul, for having me here.

Saul Gonzalez>> How would you, broadly speaking, characterize
California's journey through history through the last years of
the twentieth century and the first years of the twenty-first?

Kevin Starr>> I would characterize the last thirteen years as a
time of extraordinary challenge and transformation. We are
undergoing a transformation that is leading us a different kind
of place altogether, a world community, a global culture, and a
state which, in terms of its governmental structures, is in the
process now of re-founding itself fiscally.

So I don't think that any other decade, other than obviously
watershed decades like the 1840's or early 1850's, but certainly
the decade and plus that we've just gone through and we're still
going through that process, is really giving us a new
California, the twenty-first century California. It's a time of
transformation.

Saul Gonzalez>> As we enter into the twenty-first century, what
ideals do we leave behind in the past in the twentieth century
and what do we take forward?

Kevin Starr>> I think the big ideal we're leaving behind in
California in the twentieth century is that California is in
some way a way of escaping reality. It's in some way of getting
the unearned increment or what Edmund Burt called "the unbought
grace of life", that California is the solution to all sorts of
problems.

I think we're getting a new kind of concept of California now.
California is a place of American struggle, world struggle, and
that California is not a place to lay back and to drop out. In
fact, it's a place to be on the edge, the cutting edge, the edge
of self-definition, of professional development. So I think the
state is becoming much more competitive, more gritty, more
internalizing of a tragic sense of life. It's becoming a more
mature culture.

Saul Gonzalez>> I wonder in a state this fast, so socially
fragmented with so many newcomers, do you think we have a common
sense of being Californian?

Kevin Starr>> I think today, given all that you've discussed,
the coming of new people, the multiple states of consciousness
that they represent, the languages, the traditions, the
religions, etc., we're struggling for a common sector in
California. We're struggling for a sense of the common good.
I'm very heartened by the revelations in census 2000 showing
that our under-eighteen Californians have achieved all sorts of
interconnections across racial, religious, ethnic lines and have
a growing sense of common identity that sees the differences as
part of the solution and not part of the problem.

Saul Gonzalez>> They do because, certainly in the 1990's, you
heard a lot about tribalism running amok in California, we're
becoming the new Yugoslavia. You think, what, that was too
bleak an assessment?

Kevin Starr>> No, I think we faced that gorgon in the face and
we resisted that temptation. We turned away. We didn't turn to
stone when we looked at it. We stayed human and we went on to
try and correct that.

Saul Gonzalez>> Of course, immigration has been a topic of much
concern in California over the last several years. The
controversy aside, I wonder if, speaking more widely and
historically, there's been a society that's been so transformed
so quickly by the arrival of newcomers?

Kevin Starr>> Well, I think California is on the cutting edge
of a larger -- in terms of immigration, California is on the
cutting edge of a larger American reality. This great nation of
ours between 1820 and 1920 took in one hundred million
immigrants, so immigration is in our DNA code as an American
people. In each case, newcomers who came to the east coast were
looked on skeptically, saying will they assimilate? Will they
be part of whatever this emergent American pattern is?

I think that California today is on the cutting edge of that
cycle of immigration which is reaching new intensity with the
reform of the immigration laws in the mid-1960's. California is
becoming Hispanic, California is becoming Asian, California is
becoming everything else. So I think that new experiment,
however, that Los Angeles and Southern California and California
is adding is that you don't have to surrender who you are when
you come here. You can graft onto the public culture in
dialogue with who you are.

Go to Ellis Island. You see those papers that they left behind.
I was a doctor in the old country. I was an architect in the
old country. I was an engineer in the old country. It's very
moving to see those papers because, in effect, they had to shed
that identity and, in many cases, go into -- the doctor had to
become an orderly in a hospital and the engineer had to become
maybe a brick carrier until they could re-earn their way in
American life. Today in California -- modern California because
of our global culture, because of the internet, because of
digital culture, because of our resident immigrant populations -
- you can come here and, if you're coping and if you're
functional, you can find your place rather soon because you're
needed. You're needed to do the work of California.

Saul Gonzalez>> Let's speak less about statewide issues and
look at the city where we sit here in Los Angeles. How has its
role changed in the greater California tale over the last ten or
fifteen years?

Kevin Starr>> Los Angeles is rising up now as the capital city,
the intersection of a digital technology and culture,
infotainment, the relationship between entertainment and the
formation of value, and an ecumenical experiment that a city can
simultaneously be American, thoroughly American, thoroughly
Californian, but also simultaneously be a great Mexican city, a
great Armenian city, a great Ethiopian city, a great Korean city
as well. That's the new kind of formula because it imposes
multiple levels of culture and we're getting used to handling
that now.

Saul Gonzalez>> Let's move away from grand historical trends to
a personality and that personality is Arnold Schwarzenegger. Do
you think, in the grand scheme of California history, that he's
an important figure?

Kevin Starr>> I think Arnold Schwarzenegger, if he continues to
function as governor the way he has, will go down as one of our
greatest governors, one of our two or three greatest governors.
Already he's been in office less than a year and he's more
important because he's our governor than his films. I think
Governor Schwarzenegger is an instinctive Progressive, with a
capital "P". Progressivism, which reshaped our government in
the early 1900's, is in the DNA code of public life in
California.

We have extremes of left and right in the state, but for all our
alleged wackiness and eccentricity, Californians have been, by
and large, centrist in their policies through most of the
nineteenth century and most of the twentieth century. We had
cross-filing up until the 1950's where a Republican could go
into a Democratic primary and vice versa. I think that
progressive center holds in this state. Now I'm not --

Saul Gonzalez>> -- and the governor understands that.

Kevin Starr>> He understands that and that's why he's sixty-
seven percent because he stays with that center.

Saul Gonzalez>> Let's move out of the past and away from
present concerns in looking ahead to what remains of the twenty-
first century. If we're to maintain a decent society in this
state, what challenge do we have to confront and to solve?

Kevin Starr>> I think we have to take our problems, we have to
put our finances in order, we have to manage our growth, we have
to ensure a good life for our future generations. All of our
practical avenues have to be enlivened by a sense of what a
precious gift California is, how privileged we are to live in
this community at this time under the protection of the American
Constitution and the Constitution of the State of California and
have this glorious place, this glorious heritage, this glorious
opportunity before us.

If we have that, we can argue, we can hammer out practical
decisions, etc., but the party of California embracing
Republicans, Democrats and Independents, the party of California
will be alive and well. When that sentiment is alive and well,
we'll come to solutions, sometimes brokered solutions where
there'll be losses and gains for different people. But we'll
come to California-wide solutions. California will become part
of the solution and not the problem.

Saul Gonzalez>> Kevin Starr, thank you so much for joining us
on Life and Times. It's been a pleasure talking to you.

Kevin Starr>> Thank you, Saul. It was a pleasure to be with
you again.

To send a comment or a question to our program, you can reach us
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Val>> They say the only constant is change and that's certainly
true of life in Southern California where the present often
disappears before we've had a good chance to take a look at it.
Well, now a photo exhibit at the Pasadena Museum of California
Art lets us take a good long look. They've put the past right
next to the present in an exhibit called "Cultivating Pasadena".

The Pasadena Museum of California Art is a young museum, only
two years old. Auto Club historian, Matt Roth, gave me a tour
of the exhibit which is a joint project of the Automobile Club
of Southern California and the Labyrinth Project at USC's
Annenberg Center for Communication. Okay, Matt, what do we see
here? This is one of the earliest pictures.

Matt Roth>> Yes. The before picture is the Ezra and Jean Carr
House. They were a well-to-do family in the Victorian period.
Mrs. Carr was one of the pioneer ornamental gardeners of the
region. She did a lot of experiments with native plants. It
eventually became the site of what is now the Norton Simon
Museum and that's the after picture, the garden of the Norton
Simon Museum.

[Film Clip]

Val>> Now this is a magnificent building. It's just beautiful.
What was it?

Matt Roth>> The Universalist Church. It's kind of a high
Victorian style. It was at the corner of Chestnut and Raymond
Streets. It's now a playground, a city playground, and I'm sure
that's a great use because kids need a place to play.

Val>> But some people would say what a loss. What happened?

Matt Roth>> Well, it is a loss architecturally. The church
moved. They went to a different location.

[Film Clip]

Val>> Now this is an example of landscaping. Pasadena went
through an incredible phase where all sorts of landscaping went
in.

Matt Roth>> Well, particularly along Millionaire's Row, as it
was called, along Orange Grove Boulevard. This actually shows
the garden behind the Augustus Busch Mansion. It was a vast
garden. It went all the way down to the arroyo. Acres and
acres and acres --

Val>> -- Busch, as in the brewing company.

Matt Roth>> Yes. Augustus Busch from Anheuser Busch. The area
was later subdivided. It's now a public street with private
residences and, obviously, it's overgrown quite a bit. We don't
know if the terracing is in there yet because we didn't, you
know, go bushwhacking, but we did find the site, thanks to a
local resident named Gary Coles who knows everything about Busch
Gardens.

Val>> Wesley Jessup is the Executive Director of the Pasadena
Museum of California Art.

Wesley Jessup>> I think people, when they see this exhibition,
are going to get an incredibly rich sense of the history of this
city, of Pasadena, which is one of the most established
historical cities in Southern California, and I think that
they'll take away with them a sense of what really does happen
over time, what happens to the land. You know, these
photographs are two photographs on a very long continuum. I
mean, we can have the show in another one hundred years and it
would tell a different story. I think it's a fabulous, fabulous
experience to see these things.

Val>> Now this is one of the most fascinating. Some people are
still around who remember Mt. Lowe.

Matt Roth>> Well, sure. It's part of the National Forest now.
It's protected land. This particular location is called Granite
Gate. Colonel Lowe, who wanted to build a resort on top of the
mountain, put a trolley line up there in the late nineteenth
century actually. Pacific Electric eventually acquired it and
that's the period of this picture. Morgan Yates, who works with
me at the Auto Club archives, contacted a volunteer who works
with the fire service. He showed him the picture and he said,
"Oh, yeah. I know just where that is."

He took Morgan and Rosemary Comella, the photographer, up there.
You know, it's protected land. You have to go through a locked
gate and then they had to drive for some time up the mountain
road. The photographer for all of these shots is Rosemary
Comella from the Annenberg Center, the Labyrinth Project at USC.
She's also a website designer who did the DVD installation of
this exhibit and, yes, she took all of these pictures including
climbing up mountains.

Wesley Jessup>> One of the things that happens in Southern
California, unfortunately, is that we do lose that sense of
history and this exhibition really captures it and cultivates
that idea.

Val>> Especially for people who haven't been here very long
because we also have a high turnover in residence.

Wesley Jessup>> That's right, that's right. People move
through quickly, so this is a great show for people who are from
Pasadena, but also from others outside of Pasadena to come and
really become familiar with this city.

Val>> Now this is a street in Pasadena everybody knows.
Colorado Boulevard, the route of the Rose Parade, and also one
time, what is that? A train going through?

Matt Roth>> Right. The historical photograph was taken in 1928
by the Auto Club engineer, Ernest East, who was documenting
dangerous traffic conditions and, where mainline railroads and
automobiles have to share the same space, it's pretty dangerous.
Of course, the rail right-of-way is still there. It's now the
Gold Line light rail transit system. It's just that it's been
put under the street.

Val>> Under there is the Gold Line?

Matt Roth>> Yes.

Val>> It's the same right-of-way as the railroad track used to
be?

Matt Roth>> Yes.

Val>> That's amazing.

Matt Roth>> This was a tough picture to take. Rosemary
Comella, the photographer, really wanted to get the right light
on it and we had to get a film permit from the city of Pasadena.

Val>> Close the street down?

Matt Roth>> Well, sort of. We had to close down the turn lane
and have the traffic diverted around us. I mean, it was a big
deal.

Val>> It looks so simple too (laughter).

Matt Roth>> We're happy the results are there.

[Film Clip]

Val>> Now here is something I had no idea ever existed. A dam?
The Devils Gate Dam?

Matt Roth>> The Devils Gate Dam. It's at the top of the
arroyo. It was built in the early 1920's as a flood control dam
to keep the runoff from the San Gabriels from flooding the
arroyo. As you can see, it's now filled up with debris; that
is, you know, rock and gravel and so forth that has flowed down
off the mountains, although people who know this kind of thing,
geologists, tell me that there is just as much water in there
now. It's just that it has saturated the solid material. The
dam is still there. It's still working.

Val>> Okay, but the water is not there much.

Matt Roth>> Well, it's just there saturating some solid
material.

Val>> That's a dramatic change.

[Film Clip]

Val>> Now this one shows dramatic change.

Matt Roth>> Another one of Pasadena's icons. Well, it's
recognizable in the contemporary view as Caltech, California
Institute of Technology.

Val>> Look at this.

Matt Roth>> Right. This is when it was Throop Institute in
1912.

Val>> You would have no idea that's Caltech today.

Matt Roth>> Well, right. It's been completely built over
through some amazing leadership by people like George Ellory
Hale established Caltech as arguably the leading scientific
research institution in the world.

Val>> Well, Matt Roth, thank you so much for this little tour
of Pasadena's past and present.

Matt Roth>> It's a pleasure.

Val>> The Auto Club has another similar exhibit in the works.
The next city they're going to is Riverside. And that's our
program. I'm Val Zavala. For everyone at Life and Times,
thanks for watching. We'll see you next time.

Life and Times was made possible through the generous support of
the L.K. Whittier Foundation dedicated to improving the quality
of life by supporting innovative endeavors in the fields of
medicine, health, science and education.

And by a generous grant from Jim and Anne Rothenberg.

Val>> Next time on Life and Times --

Is it designed to save small businesses or protect corporate
coffers? The pros and cons of Proposition 64.

>> If Proposition 64 succeeds, public interest groups can't
stop the polluters, the cheaters, the privacy violators.

>> Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger has recently endorsed the
initiative and you know his action plan is jobs, jobs, jobs.

Val>> That's next time on Life and Times.