All Women are NOT Created Equal

In the race for Santa Clara County, D.A., the right woman is on the left.

For the first time in the history of this country, there is growing interest in putting a woman in the White House. And here in California, more and more women are running for local office. But before we heed the feminist call to make our President the First Lady as well, we should probably consider the possibility that being woman, alone, is not enough.

With the 2006 mid-term elections looming and the 2008 presidential race not far behind, Karyn Sinunu and her female rival, Dolores Carr, represent the national dilemma in microcosm and are changing the way we think about law enforcement, politics and the qualities we look for in a leader.

Though Sinunu and Carr are both women, they could not be more different. Sinunu is a Liberal; Carr is a Conservative. Sinunu is a nuancing genius; Carr stays the course.

Perhaps it is unfair to compare them. After all, Sinunu is, as her closest friend and colleague, Deputy D.A. Ed Fernandez says proudly "a star." She began her career at the Santa Clara County D.A.'s office in 1986, after raising two children. She whizzed through her trial assignments in five years, winning the coveted Trial Attorney of the Year award. By '91 she was managing teams and by '94 she was an assistant D. A. Two years ago, Sinunu was promoted to Chief Assistant D. A. for Homicide. Her boss, District Attorney George Kennedy, endorses her candidacy. With experience managing over 180 attorneys and a budget exceeding $60 million, Karyn Sinunu's qualifications are stellar.

Sinunu has authored a victim's rights manual which is now being distributed to all California prosecutors and has developed a procedure for use in child abuse investigations. She is strongly committed to victim's rights, has proposed legislation that would make it a felony to frame someone for a crime and is not afraid to throw out a case if evidence suggests that police (or over-zealous prosecutors) have fingered the wrong man. Now let's take a look at Dolores Carr.

Carr has worked in the D.A.'s office since 1985. A look at her web site turns up a number of endorsements. She is hailed for her "comprehensive knowledge of the law" and for "supervising the grading of the California General Bar Examination." But nothing on her site or in her campaign materials seems to get to the heart of how Dolores Carr thinks. For that, we need to review the case that put Dolores Carr and Karyn Sinunu on opposing sides for the first time.

Back in 1991, Carr was prosecuting a rape case. The alleged perpetrator was a black man who had frequented the 42nd Street Bar & Grill in Palo Alto. Three women accused him of following and harassing them. One said she was raped. While two of the victims were unable to identify their assailant, one picked out a man named Lucas from a photo line-up.

Dr. Lucas, who was in residency at Stanford University, was picked up and charged with stalking, sexual harassment, and rape. Yet, though all three victims claimed the perpetrator had been driving a red car and wore a leather jacket, no red car and no leather jacket ever turned up. What's more, DNA samples taken from the rape victim did not match DNA taken from Lucas. One would think it would have ended there, but it did not.

Dolores Carr, now a California Supreme Court judge, was insistent that Lucas was guilty, and chose to hold him on the lesser charges of stalking and harassment. Not until Karyn Sinunu got involved, months later, was the actual perpetrator found and Dr. Lucas released. Interestingly, the case is in the news again, because the convicted rapist has been released, and has re-offended.

Sinunu and Carr are also facing off again, this time in the race for the D. A.'s office. Carr, who became a judge in 2000, is portraying herself as an "outsider" who will "reform" the D. A.'s office. Here's a quote from her campaign materials: " . . . it is the ethical obligation of the district attorney to seek truth, not simply convictions. Anything less inflicts unnecessary pain and expense upon litigants." Yet when Carr was recently asked about the Lucas case, she said she wouldn't do anything differently.

Despite Carr's campaign rhetoric, the Lucas case demonstrates that Carr lacks Sinunu's wisdom. Had Sinunu not stepped in, one can only guess at the number of months Dr. Lucas would have remained behind bars. What's more, with Lucas in jail, the person ultimately found to be the rapist might never have been charged.

I set up a meeting with Karyn Sinunu to understand what she saw in the Lucas case that Carr missed by "staying the course" despite evidence of innocence.

Sinunu lives in a modest brick house in an upper-middle-class San Jose neighborhood. The yard is impeccably manicured, with short lush grass and well-maintained hedges. She opens the door and leads me into a living room with large, overstuffed furniture in subdued tones. The hardwood floors spread a honey-colored glow throughout the house. The décor is Metropolitan Home. Not fancy, but very nice, and homey. The artwork and the bookcases throughout reflect an appreciation of culture and a lifelong pursuit of education.

Sinunu herself is a mixture of femininity and strength. Dressed in a dark blazer, matching knee-length skirt and leather high-heeled pumps, she is the visual representation of the balance between business and pleasure, style and substance. When she speaks, she conveys a mixture of passion, intelligence, compassion, and a laser-like ability to perceive the essence of things.

Despite the fifteen years that have passed since the Lucas case, she was surprisingly clear on the specifics. Yet what impressed me most was her description of the Lucas interrogation and how she sensed, immediately, that Lucas was an innocent man.

Sinunu: [The police] picked him up. They questioned him at length. And one of the questions was, "Have you ever followed women?" And he said, "yes." I don't know why, but he talked about one time, when he was in his car. He saw a beautiful woman crossing the crosswalk and he circled around the block and looked at her. Now Dr. Lucas, it was clear from watching the video, was a man who was socially naïve and very much a book worm and it was an odd thing for a man to say in that kind of an interview, but he was that forthright. He was very thoughtful in his answers and he was clearly just beaten down by this, I mean shocked, that he had been arrested. So the case came to the District Attorney's office, and based on the statement that he had followed a woman one time, and quite frankly I don't know any man who hasn't probably done the same, but just looking from afar—he wasn't stalking her or anything—he just watched a pretty woman. Based on that statement, he was charged.

Dr. Lucas couldn't make bail. A recent medical school graduate, he had no money, just student loans. He sat in jail for six weeks. Finally, the DNA evidence taken from the rape victim came back. It did not match the DNA taken from Dr. Lucas.

Sinunu: An attorney called me in Palo Alto and said "I'm representing Dr. Lucas, what's going on with your office?" Well, I had just taken over the Sexual Assault unit, so I took the case. I looked at everything. I didn't know how we could possibly prove this. And I had the case dismissed. We were changing our whole theory, I mean, we believed that one person did this . . . that had a certain piece of clothing and a certain car, and we couldn't find anyone who said that Lucas had a leather jacket. We couldn't find any one who said he had a red car, or borrowed a red car. I learned after that, that there was a janitor there at the hospital, at Stanford Hospital, who was little bit obsessed by the case. He kept asking everyone about it. And he was an African American man who drove a red car.

Sinunu discovered that this janitor had a record. He'd been arrested for driving under the influence. When the police arrested him they took his blood to determine his blood alcohol level. Sinunu asked them to run his DNA. She then asked them to compare it to the DNA evidence found on the rape victim. It was a match.

What was it that allowed Karyn Sinunu to grasp what others missed? Many watched the videotape of Dr. Lucas’ interrogation, including Dolores Carr. Others were privy to the same evidence Sinunu had at her disposal. What led Sinunu to question the curious janitor whom nobody else seemed to notice? I contend her finely honed "women's" intuition tipped the balance.

Intuition, to be clear, is not instinct. Instinct tells us to run from danger and to hold our breath when underwater. Intuition is different; it is instinct tempered with wisdom. It requires assessment of the facts surrounding a situation and an awareness of the interests of the players. It necessitates constant assimilation of new information. Intuition requires the ability to "nuance."

A person with highly developed intuition will “smell” something amiss, just as Karyn Sinunu did when she watched the tape of the Lucas interrogation.

It's time to focus our energies on finding and electing leaders who possess the kind of thoughtfulness and intuitive leadership that a woman like Karyn Sinunu can bring. Not content to simply uphold the law, Sinunu is proactively crafting both legislation and guidance to assist her fellow attorneys in finding, prosecuting, and removing from society those criminal elements most dangerous to our communities.

Simultaneously, she is passionately committed to victim's rights, defendant's rights, and the all-important task of protecting our children from exposure to violence.
With a strong background in philosophy and psychology, Sinunu is literally writing the book on how to both prosecute and prevent, the violence that predisposes children to lives as adult offenders. Karyn Sinunu is a visionary.

In the end, whether we are selecting a District Attorney or the next President of the United States, what matters most isn't getting any woman into office, but getting the right woman. And in the race for Santa Clara County D.A., the right woman is on the left.