THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT  
              Copyright (c) 1994, Landmark Communications, Inc.

DATE: Thursday, October 6, 1994              TAG: 9410060022
SECTION: FRONT                    PAGE: A18  EDITION: FINAL  
TYPE: Editorial
                                             LENGTH: Medium:   57 lines

CORRECTION/CLARIFICATION: ***************************************************************** The Norfolk city attorney is not a constitutional officer, as stated in yesterday's editorial about General District Judge Cloud's differences with the commonwealth's attorney's and city attorney's offices. Correction published Friday, October 7, 1994, page A18. ***************************************************************** JUDGE CLOUD VS. THE PROSECUTORS SETTLE THIS DISPUTE

Norfolk General District Judge Charles R. Cloud wants prosecutors to weigh in on the side of alleged victims of selected serious-misdemeanor cases that come to his court. Victims and the community at large would be well-served if appropriate police-court cases involving violence were prosecuted, but Norfolk's prosecutors possess limited resources and must use them in the manner they deem best, and be answerable for their decisions.

A Circuit Court judge has directed Judge Cloud to refrain - until the controversy can be aired fully in court - from enforcing his orders of last week to Commonwealth's Attorney Charles D. Griffith Jr. and City Attorney Philip R. Trapani to provide prosecutors.

And state Attorney General James S. Gilmore III, in an advisory opinion, says Judge Cloud cannot compel the commonwealth's attorney or the city attorney - each man a constitutional officer elected by the people - to prosecute.

Be that as it may, garden-variety violence that daily makes it to court but rarely into the news is a valid concern. That Judge Cloud has raised it in theatrical ways - with a lengthy and, at points, eccentric petition to Mr. Gilmore and in a bizarre ``press conference'' near a roadside vegetable stand - poses troubling questions about his judgment.

That's regrettable. Low-visibility violence harms not only victims but society generally. Many localities mandate arrest and prosecution in domestic-violence cases and professional prosecution when some citizens obtain warrants charging others with misdemeanor attacks.

But adoption of such a course necessitates funds for additional personnel. Mr. Griffith would welcome more money for prosecutors, and he has recently gained more, but not yet enough, as he sees it, to accommodate Judge Cloud.

The judge insists otherwise. Whatever the reality, this dispute should be fruitfully settled rather than fruitlessly litigated. A fruitful settlement would provide the wherewithal to address forcefully the misdemeanor violence spotlighted, however oddly, by the judge. ILLUSTRATION: Judge Cloud

by CNB