DATE: Thursday, March 13, 1997              TAG: 9703130035

SECTION: DAILY BREAK             PAGE: E1   EDITION: FINAL  

SOURCE: BY TONY WHARTON, STAFF WRITER 

                                            LENGTH:  244 lines

CORRECTION/CLARIFICATION: ***************************************************************** The Alford plea derives from the 1970 case North Carolina v. Henry C. Alford, in which Alford, while maintaining his innocence, pleaded guilty to a charge of second-degree murder, thus avoiding the possibility of a death sentence. The Supreme Court has considered an Alford plea to be analogous to a plea of nolo contendere; the main difference is that a plea of nolo contendere does not make any claim of guilt or innocence. (National Newsletter for Professional Copy Editors, June/July 1997) Unpublished correction entered June 30, 1997. ***************************************************************** THE ENFORCER ``CHUCK'' GRIFFITH JR. FOUND HIS CALLING AS A TOUGH PROSECUTOR WHO DOESN'TLIKE TO LOSE. ``THERE ARE RULES,'' HE SAYS, ``YOU PLAY BY THEM, THE BEST MAN WINS.''

MARGIE GRIFFITH told Chuck on their first date just what she thought of his profession.

``I remember saying to him that night - I had had a pretty rough divorce - and I said, `I don't like lawyers,' '' she said.

``He said, `I don't either. I'm a prosecutor.' ''

Since 1992, Commonwealth's Attorney Charles D. ``Chuck'' Griffith Jr. has been the prosecutor in Norfolk, the man responsible for trying anyone charged with violating state law.

Some prosecutors become well-dressed television celebrities on the strength of headline-grabbing cases. Marcia Clark and Christopher Darden, of the O.J. Simpson case, are the most recent examples. The phenomenon goes back to Vincent Bugliosi in the Charles Manson murder case.

Griffith's name does pop up in the news, most recently over the prosecution of psychiatrist Tobin Jones, accused of murdering his wife, Megan.

Still, it is hard to imagine Chuck Griffith as a celebrity prosecutor, and he would take that as a compliment.

Griffith, 41, dresses plainly, is unwilling to promote himself, and doesn't possess a celebrity's features. His face is all tough angles, cut out with a table saw and finished with coarse sandpaper.

``Chuck sees things in black and white and I see things in gray,'' Margie Griffith said, ``and we complement each other that way.''

Those sharp angles define Griffith.

Griffith doesn't like to make deals with defense attorneys. His office has curtailed several forms of plea-bargaining. He sees those as shortcuts that he has no reason to use.

``I think he probably does have a stricter and more rigid view than his predecessors,'' said defense attorney Andrew Sacks. ``Defense attorneys by nature seek flexibility in the system.''

Griffith sees his job this way:

``What's the difference between being someone's opponent in the courtroom and being his opponent on the tennis court? There are rules, you play by them, the best man wins. That's what the system thrives on.''

Griffith prefers to play for the prosecution, and to win. He said, ``What I like about this job is I always get to do the right thing.''

Chuck Griffith is a lawyer fated to be a prosecutor, who can only serve the law by seeing that it is enforced. Yet the danger, and he knows it, is: How do you know you're always doing the right thing?

Griffith eats breakfast every morning off a walnut table made from the late Judge Walter Hoffman's chambers.

He made the table himself, selecting the pieces and cutting and assembling them. They came his way because his father, a contractor, had supervised the renovation of the judges' chambers in the federal courthouse, the one named after Hoffman.

When Griffith was young, it looked more likely that he would go into his father's work than Hoffman's.

``I'm not sure you can put into words exactly what it is, but I really like the feeling of joining wood together and shaping it into something,'' Griffith said. ``I love the feeling of sawdust.''

He was born in Norfolk in 1955 and grew up here, living in Talbot Park, Meadowbrook Forest and other neighborhoods. After his parents divorced when he was 6, he lived for a time in Sandbridge in Virginia Beach.

``I was a surfer,'' Griffith said. ``I was kind of a goof-off in high school. I hunted, surfed, did some carpentry.''

He got his act together enough to go to Elon College in North Carolina, where he majored in philosophy. He earned his law degree at Washington and Lee University in Lexington, and started to work in Norfolk in 1982 as a defense attorney.

``I thought I wanted to protect defendants' rights, to be a trial lawyer,'' Griffith said. But when he graduated and joined what is now Sacks, Sacks and Imprevento in Norfolk in 1982, that changed.

To work with clients who often are guilty, defense attorneys have to think of themselves as a necessary part of the system.

Defense attorney Andrew Sacks described it this way: ``We are also defending the system that protects all of us. That's how I think of my duties even though the person I represented may have been guilty. In a constitutional democracy it's important that these rights are articulated every day in the courts.''

That wasn't enough for Griffith.

``Being a defense lawyer did not meet with what I had thought,'' he said. ``I found out I could not square that, day in and day out.''

He got a job with the Norfolk commonwealth's attorney's office he now heads, and knew right away this was where he belonged.

Early in his career as a prosecutor, he says, he knows he had a reputation for being somewhat merciless.

``I was a lot more brash and younger then,'' he said. ``I would hate to think now that people who don't know me think I'm ruthless.''

It was about that time, in 1985, he met and married Margie, who works in early childhood education. She had two boys from a previous marriage, and she and Chuck had a son of their own. They live in Lafayette-Winona.

Griffith said Margie helped him see the value of prevention as well as punishment when it comes to dealing with crime.

How does Chuck Griffith the prosecutor translate his ideas of right and wrong so Chuck Griffith the father can raise his sons?

He said he has never hit them, and he has to acknowledge those gray areas in life lessons.

``We'll talk about how people see things differently,'' he said. ``You have to give people credit for having a different opinion from you.''

He avidly follows University of North Carolina basketball because he likes coach Dean Smith's philosophy. He finds sports helpful in explaining things to his children and other people.

``You know how fans are, every call that goes against them is a bad call,'' he said. ``But I believe in the theory of bad karma. If you get a call that goes your way, but you know it's a bad call, that will come back to get you.''

Is that a good way to make a point about fair play, or does he believe it?

``Oh, I believe it,'' he said.

By 1992, Griffith had moved from the commonwealth's attorney's office to the federal prosecutors' office in Norfolk, and could have stayed as long as he wanted.

George Schaefer changed that.

The Norfolk Republican persuaded Griffith, with some difficulty, to run against the Democrats' candidate in a special election when Commonwealth's Attorney William Rutherford became a judge.

The Democrats had held the post for more than a century; Griffith was a relative unknown with no political experience. He would have to quit his federal job to run.

``What could we lose?'' said Margie Griffith. ``Only our house, our vacation, our savings, every-thing.''

After talking about it for weeks, Schaefer remembers, ``I asked Chuck, `Which would you regret more, not running or losing?' And that's when he said, `I'll do it.' ''

Under Schaefer's guidance, Griffith walked, almost ran, to thousands of voters' doors, and it paid off. Norfolk residents handed the commonwealth's attorney's office to the Republican. Griffith was re-elected in 1993 for a full four-year term.

Now he was the chief prosecutor, who doesn't just handle cases, he makes policy. Now Chuck Griffith's legal philosophy would help determine how the system worked in Norfolk.

``I'm sure not all the public wants to hear me say this, but I don't necessarily think all people arrested for crimes are irredeemable people,'' Griffith said. ``Not everybody has to be locked up forever and the key thrown away. I know that. But they do need to be held accountable.

``It is true that when I see someone who needs to be held accountable, you don't want to be in my way. I'm hard-headed then. When I have a case like that, I will work every hour I can.''

To make the office more efficient, he organized the attorneys into teams and increased the use of computers. Gradually he added prosecutors, and the staff of 19 he inherited has grown to 28.

Griffith's self-confidence was tested within a month of his his re-election in 1993.

Norfolk police arrested three men in the Halloween 1992 murder of convenience store clerk James E. Harris. After one of those men, Brian McCray, was convicted in August 1993, questions were raised about whether Griffith's prosecutors had given McCray's lawyers all the evidence they were entitled to see.

McCray's lawyers filed motions for a new trial, and in December 1993 a judge granted the request. At a second trial, McCray was acquitted. The other two men went to prison, however.

The new Republican prosecutor was thrust into the headlines. A deputy prosecutor resigned. Margie Griffith says it was the one time she regretted that he had become chief prosecutor.

The state bar investigated but found no wrongdoing. Griffith maintains to this day that he did the right thing and that it has not affected the way he handles evidence.

Troy Spencer, who had been a top prosecutor in the office since long before Griffith took it over, tangled with Griffith during the controversy and quit. He returned to defense work in Peter Decker's law firm.

Spencer said he has no complaint with Griffith.

``He's treated me very fairly,'' Spencer said. ``I wasn't his hero, under the circumstances, and he sure wasn't my hero.

``But I really think he's done a good job.''

Spencer and Sacks were among the few defense attorneys who would talk at all about Griffith's office or practices. Several declined to comment on the grounds that they work daily across the aisle from Griffith and his prosecutors.

``I think Chuck's doing a fine job,'' said Sacks. ``There are still policies that Chuck holds that I disagree with.''

In the Tobin Jones case, Griffith was so unwilling to reveal his evidence in a recent preliminary hearing the judge dismissed the case against Jones. It has since been reinstated by a grand jury indictment.

Spencer and Sacks each mentioned methods of negotiating plea agreements that they feel Griffith's office uses less than it should.

Sacks said Griffith's office appears unwilling to accept ``Alford pleas,'' named after a Supreme Court justice, in which a defendant enters a guilty plea to avoid a trial but maintains his innocence.

``My impression is that Chuck does not believe in that kind of plea,'' Sacks said. ``Fundamentally, the Supreme Court of the U.S. has approved of that kind of plea.

``I don't think it's the prerogative of the prosecutor's office to get involved in saying whether or not they allow that kind of plea.''

He acknowledged it is not illegal or unethical for prosecutors to decline such plea agreements, however.

Griffith said, ``It is my office policy that we do not accept Alford pleas. I want people to accept responsibility, and if they do not want to, then we will take our case to a judge and jury.

``Otherwise, they'd be doing this all the time.''

Spencer referred to the ``finding under advisement,'' in which a defendant with an otherwise clean record and good character can plead guilty but not be found guilty by the court and is put on probation. If the defendant stays out of trouble, the offense is wiped from their record.

``There seems to be a tendency over there to think a finding under advisement is not a good way to go,'' Spencer said. ``But that's one of the most useful tools I ever had as a prosecutor.''

Griffith said, ``I can't say it's never done. In the law, the court has no clear authority to do that. Although it's a tool that can allow you to dispose of some cases, that's not what I'm really here to do.''

In a broader sense, Spencer said, too many prosecutors' offices today, and not just Griffith's, ``are full of people who have led straight and narrow lives.''

Life experience, Spencer said, helps you figure out who can be reformed and who can't.

``You look over at some schmo and know, by the grace of God or luck or whatever, that could be me,'' he said. ``There are times when you just have to back down. This is not Jesse James here.

``None of us are really right.''

It's just as true for any profession, Spencer said. Doctors, lawyers, police officers, even journalists, ought to ask themselves how well their actions measure up to their words.

Griffith sees his role this way:

``The defendants have rights and they need people there to defend them, and I have no disagreement with that whatsoever,'' he said. ``But the defense attorneys are collectively under the pressure of their individual clients.

``I've got to be kind of the opposing force to bring it into equilibrium. If you and the defense attorney are going in the same direction, then you don't have any kind of equilibrium.'' ILLUSTRATION: COLOR PHOTOS BY MOTOYA NAKAMURA/The Virginian-Pilot

AT LEFT: Griffith in his office.

Griffith and assistant Elizabeth Dopp go over evidence in an

attempted murder case before going to trial. ``What I like about

this job,'' says Griffith, ``is I always get to do the right

thing.'' KEYWORDS: PROFILE BIOGRAPHY NORFOLK

COMMONWEALTH'S ATTORNEY

Send Suggestions or Comments to webmaster@scholar.lib.vt.edu