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08/11/2003

The Lords of Bakersfield — A sordid law-enforcement scandal rife with murder, favoritism and cover-up continues to unfold in California's Great Central Valley, inside a District Attorney's Office famous for its toughness on crime — and infamous for convicting the innocent. Now the murder of a top prosecutor has rekindled interest in a series of cases stretching back decades in which powerful men seemed to break the law with impunity.

Last fall, the second-in-command at the Kern County District Attorney's Office, Stephen Tauzer, was found in his back yard fatally stabbed and bludgeoned. And though District Attorney Ed Jagels immediately tried to clamp down on the flow of information by telling staff members at his Bakersfield headquarters not to speak to the press, the story of events leading up to Tauzer's murder — and of the apparent favoritism insiders enjoy at Jagels' office — has surfaced.

Tauzer, it turns out, befriended a young drug addict prosecuted by his office. According to news reports, the prosecutor interceded on Lance Hillis' behalf repeatedly in court, made sure he got probation and treatment when others similarly charged in Kern County are locked up, got the young man a job in the DA's office despite his criminal record, and then began living with him in what many in Kern County now suspect was a sexual relationship between a 57-year-old prosecutor and a 22-year-old small-time criminal.

The young man's father, Chris Hillis, a former investigator in the same DA's office, reportedly asked Tauzer to back off after his son repeatedly failed at drug treatment, arguing that jail time would be the only way to break Lance's addiction. Tauzer refused, and the two reportedly came to blows. Afterward, Lance left his drug treatment program and died at the wheel of a stolen car. Six weeks later, Tauzer was dead and Chris Hillis was in jail for murder, allegedly linked to the crime by DNA found on a knife left near the body.

Tauzer has been lauded by many since his death, including his close friend and former roomate, Jagels. But the conflict of interest with Lance Hillis appears real. In his relationship with Hillis, Tauzer also may have followed in the footsteps of several other prominent Bakersfield movers and shakers: the former county personnel director, also a murder victim, a powerful and connected political consultant, and the former publisher of the Bakersfield Californian newspaper all were accused in court in the 1980s of having consorted with youthful offenders while the authorities looked the other way. The apparent impunity with which such civic figures behaved gave rise to a widely held belief in this region in a shadowy group known as the "Lords of Bakersfield" — pillars of the community who were said to be sexual predators, molesters or who used their official powers for personal gain. The Bakersfield Police Commissioner in that era, Glenn Fitts, also fueled the legend: He, too, was known for partying with juveniles and giving them drugs.When he was linked to the murder of a young girl, authorities refused to charge him and the Californian would not identify him; he eventually committed suicide after protestors and angry parents paraded at his home, forcing the case into the public eye. Now the Tauzer case has has renewed interest in the Lords of Bakersfield story, making national headlines. (For background, see this essay at CaliforniaAuthors.com or delve into the long history of wrongful convictions and misconduct in the toughest town on crime in America, Bakersfield, at Mean Justice, where the Lords of Bakersfield story was detailed. The Bakersfield Californian has produced an excellent Lords of Bakersfield special report. And the Associated Press took the story to a national audience in this Washington Post piece.)

In the Tauzer case, normally public police reports, search warrant affidavits and other court files have been sealed, some apparently in violation of state law, with the secrecy so pervasive that even the identity of the judge who sealed the records was for a time unknown. The local press, for many years uncritical of the D.A., says “the sour smell of cover-up is wafting in.” Jagels has responded by stonewalling the paper and calling its reports ‘lunacy.’