DATE: Wednesday, October 8, 1997            TAG: 9710080506

SECTION: FRONT                   PAGE: A1   EDITION: FINAL 

SOURCE: BY LEDYARD KING AND WARREN FISKE, STAFF WRITERS 

DATELINE: RICHMOND                          LENGTH:  108 lines

SOME OF CANDIDATES' CLAIMS CLEAR AS MUDBEYER UNFAIRLY CAST GILMORE'S RECORD; GILMORE LEFT CAR-TAX PICTURE INCOMPLETE.

Legal experts and political allies say Lt. Gov. Donald S. Beyer Jr. was wrong to judge former Henrico County prosecutor James S. Gilmore III as soft on crime based on a review of 35 sex offender cases Gilmore handled.

A day after the cases came public during a vitriolic debate between the two gubernatorial candidates, Democrat Beyer held a briefing Tuesday to continue attacking Gilmore. He accused the Republican of allowing light prison sentences for sexual offenders.

But legal experts said a number of complex factors make a judgment of Gilmore's actions all but impossible.

Even a thorough examination of case files would not necessarily reveal just how strong - or weak - a prosecutor's case might be, attorneys and legal scholars said. Especially in child molestation cases, where key witnesses often are youngsters whose testimonies are shaky or whose parents don't want to traumatize their children by forcing them to recount the experience in court, they said.

And there are other forces at work: the willingness of a judge to follow the sentencing guidelines suggested in a plea agreement, or state laws that, according to some defense attorneys, give prosecutors wide latitude to bluff their way into obtaining a plea agreement when they don't have the evidence to win in court.

``I think you ought to be really careful before you start to draw any conclusions,'' said Alexandria Commonwealth's Attorney S. Randolph Sengal, a Democrat who is backing Beyer. ``It strikes me as a little bit inappropriate (to assume) that, because of a certain sentence, the prosecutor is taking a soft approach.''

Crime has emerged as an important credibility issue in a campaign whose increasing acrimony, played out in negative television ads in recent weeks, spilled out at Monday's debate.

Beyer's allegations about Gilmore's handling of sexual molestation cases were among a number of misleading statements the candidates made during the two-hour exchange. Others include:

Gilmore's insistence that the personal property tax on privately owned vehicles would be ``completely gone'' within five years if he's elected governor.

In fact, Gilmore has proposed a five-year plan to phase out the levy on the first $20,000 of appraised value of car. The owner of a car worth $30,000 still would be assessed by local governments for the remaining $10,000 in value.

Gilmore's assertion that Virginia is a high-tax state.

Gilmore cites rankings that place Virginia 16th in the nation in per capita state and local taxes. But that statistic fails to take into account that Virginians have among the highest incomes in the nation.

The negative tenor of the debate seemed to turn off many viewers. Robert Roth, a Chesapeake engineer technician, was so put off by the exchange that he decided not to vote next month.

``I will not in any circumstance vote in the Virginia gubernatorial election,'' said Roth, who almost always goes to the polls. ``I can't bring myself to vote for someone who slings mud the way these two guys were slinging mud last night. It was so overwhelming that if they said anything substantive, it went right by me.''

Vanessa Blowe, a Chesapeake physician, said: ``I really didn't learn that much about the candidates other than they don't like each other. I was hoping to find out how they planned to carry out their programs.''

But if the acerbic attacks were repelling would-be voters, Beyer didn't seem to notice. At Tuesday's briefing, he released the full version of his scathing report card on Gilmore's record of prosecuting sex offenders when he was commonwealth's attorney for Henrico County.

Beyer's chief claim: Gilmore's office failed to properly prosecute 35 of some 100 cases during his years as commonwealth's attorney - 1988-93. In those cases, Beyer said, violent sex offenders were allowed back on the street far too early.

``As I read the 35 cases, it made me sick to my stomach,'' Beyer said. ``I'm not looking at this as a prosecutor. I'm not a lawyer. I'm looking at this as a parent.''

The Democratic nominee said he released his review of the 35 cases only after Gilmore continued to air an ad suggesting that Beyer would loosen parole restrictions based on his 1992 vote to release non-violent offenders from prison early.

``This is a fight I didn't start,'' he said.

Gilmore defended himself by saying that he didn't always have the best evidence, and ``sometimes it's best to get the conviction (through a plea agreement) so you can at least get it on their records for the next time around.''

Beyer's harsh rhetoric could be risky - especially when characterizing a Gilmore prosecutorial record that is already several years old - according to Jay S. Albanese, chairman of Virginia Commonwealth University's Department of Criminal Justice.

``When you take things like this from somebody's past, you have to worry about this potentially backfiring when somebody sees this as old news or no news at all,'' Albanese said.

Searching for warts in somebody's legal background is like ``pearl diving,'' said Frank Zimring, director of the Earl Warren Legal Institute at the University of California at Berkeley.

Aside from reaching conclusions that are not necessarily valid, combing old court records for visual evidence of a prosecutor's leniency might also dissuade potential candidates from seeking such posts for fear that it might haunt them in a future campaign, Zimring said. MEMO: From Pilot Online: Join our ``Debate the Debate'' TalkNet

discussion on the News page at www.pilotonline.com. Give your opinion

and read others: Did Gilmore or Beyer score more points with voters?

Related editorial/B10 ILLUSTRATION: [Color Photo]

Despite a two-hour debate, many voters were left in the dark about

platform details by Gilmore, left, and Beyer. KEYWORDS: CANDIDATES GUBERNATORIAL RACE DEBATE

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