|
 E-mail Story Print Friendly
Sage Intrigue Or Interest? |
Sunday, September 1, 2002
Life's Tragedies Can't Sink DA Kari Brandenburg
By Polly Summar
Of the Journal
Almost a year ago, Bernalillo County District Attorney Kari Brandenburg and a colleague found themselves driving cross-country in a rental car from Columbia, S.C., to Albuquerque. Through Georgia, Alabama, Mississippi ... "Half the time we didn't even know what state we were in," says Brandenburg. "It was the most amazing experience. Everyone we met was a friend. In Arkansas, we even got asked to a football game."
Click to enlarge
Click to enlarge
Not everyone would see the experience that way. The two women had been attending a conference at the National Advocacy Center when terrorists hit the Twin Towers in New York on Sept. 11. There were no flights out of Columbia, and rental cars were scarce. Brandenburg's husband, attorney Bruce Pasternack, was back in Albuquerque, and he wanted his wife home.
"He told me, 'You hitchhike home if you have to! You need to be at home with your family!' " Brandenburg recalls.
Part of his frenzy was that the events of Sept. 11 confirmed his belief in the negativity of the world. "He always believed that the world was an unsafe place and people were out to get you," says Brandenburg of her late husband, who died just three months later, in December 2001. "And I'm just the opposite. I believe that you attract the energy you put out."
When she finally arrived home, her husband was waiting. "He said something along the lines of, 'Yeah, Pollyanna, tell me what's so good about this.' But, of course, we had just had the most incredible experience."
And that pretty much sums up 48-year-old Kari Brandenburg, Bernalillo County's first female district attorney. It doesn't really matter what life throws her, she finds a way to catch it and throw it back.
To date, life has given her more than a handful. She has been married three times, adopted five children — one of whom died as an infant — and watched as all four of her children lost their fathers within the span of a year.
Her own father — former District Attorney James Brandenburg — didn't necessarily think women made good lawyers, but she decided at a young age that some day she would be Bernalillo County's DA anyway.
And through it all, she doesn't ever remember not being pragmatic about life. "Even as a kid I was like that," she says. "I thought, why ask for something your parents can't give? Why not figure out what their budget is and then you'll know the situation? Why make yourself miserable?"
Will of steel
It's not that she's easygoing.
That's a description even her father chuckles at. "Kari, easygoing?" says the senior Brandenburg. "Kari's very personable, a great sense of humor, very much a people person," says her father. "But underneath all of that, she's a cinderblock — very opinionated and strong-willed."
It's mainly her physical appearance that throws you off: big smile, short coif, tasteful jewelry, nice tan. Like the mom next door. And she rarely dons that suited dress-for-success look. When she was running for office two years ago, in her flowery skirts and long vests, it was surprising to many people how unflappable she was, even when the most bizarre of incidents faced her.
An e-mail that seemed like a love note, for example, was sent from the e-mail account of her Republican opponent, former state Sen. L. Skip Vernon, to her e-mail account.
Despite Vernon's claims that it was meant for his wife, it was an embarrassing moment. Was it meant as a kind of sexual intimidation, as Pasternack claimed in a letter to the Journal? There was never a conclusion, and Brandenburg told the Journal at the time: "I don't know what his intent was," but "I don't think he's in love with me. I'm too old, I'm too tired, and realistically, I'm not Skip's type."
There are people who believe that the e-mail mistake lost the election for Vernon, that it wasn't so much that Brandenburg won the vote as that Vernon lost it. "Skip Vernon destroyed himself with that absurd thing with the love letter," says former District Attorney Bob Schwartz.
But that characterization overlooks one thing, an aspect of her campaigning that appealed to voters at the "everyman/everywoman" level. At each opportunity, Vernon made Brandenburg's background an issue, focusing on the fact that she had spent her entire career on the other side, defending criminals as a public defender and then while working with her father in his law firm. Vernon himself had only three months experience working as a prosecutor while a law student at the University of New Mexico.
Still, each time he attacked her background, Brandenburg simply stated her belief that every American is innocent until proven guilty.
"You're not walking into court with a criminal," she said during one neighborhood association meeting a month before the election. "You're walking into court with someone who's accused and who's presumed innocent."
Brandenburg stressed, over and over again, that a fair trial is what she stands for, even as she and her staff prosecute the accused.
Facing criticism
There are those, including Schwartz, who say Brandenburg thinks too much about the accused. "I think a prosecutor makes a better DA than a defense attorney," says Schwartz, explaining that each side develops certain instincts. "I wonder if she has the right kind of homing device for her instincts."
Another issue is that Brandenburg has openly stated she has problems with the death penalty. "I have signed notices that we're pursuing the death penalty," she says. "But I want to make sure we do it consistently and that the defendant has all the same advantages of law as the opposition."
Schwartz comments, "It was not a requirement to believe in the death penalty to be a prosecutor in my office. It was a requirement if you were going to prosecute a death penalty case."
For the record, Brandenburg does have prosecutors working for her who believe in the death penalty. Jim Yontz, for example, who started his career as a police officer in Salt Lake City and has subsequently worked for six district attorneys in New Mexico, is one of them. "In some cases, I do believe in the death penalty," says Yontz, who works in violent crimes. "I think a personal conviction is important to handle the penalty phase. I don't think it makes that much difference handling the trial phase."
To that, Brandenburg says, simply, "If we are going to kill people, we need to be so fair about it."
Setting policy
When it comes to the Bernalillo County District Attorney, the job-holder has certainly run the gamut in "style" from the flamboyant Schwartz, whose every utterance was a sound bite, to the nose-to-the-grindstone style of Brandenburg.
Some attorneys think Brandenburg should be more "out front in the community," Schwartz among them. He prides his administration, for example, for helping get the law changed so that a victim of domestic violence doesn't have to agree to press charges or testify in order for a case to be prosecuted.
Dealing with domestic violence was a key priority for Brandenburg when she was campaigning, as was reducing drunken driving. She says conviction rates are up for the latter, but a little down for domestic violence.
"Setting policy is good," says Brandenburg, "but a lot of people don't understand domestic violence and they end up on juries. And juries still say, 'We felt like we couldn't convict him because the victim wouldn't even testify' or 'We didn't want to convict him because it was a family matter.'
"We all agree that murder and stealing are wrong. Those laws are easy to enforce. But in our communities, you'll still hear people say, 'She deserved it.' There's still a lot of educating the public about domestic violence that needs to happen."
To that end, Brandenburg attends neighborhood association meetings, talks to the press whenever she's contacted, responds to every letter and e-mail and returns every phone call.
Much of the policy-setting comes through the efforts of the New Mexico District Attorneys' Association, but in terms of setting policy as an individual DA, Brandenburg says, "We are so overwhelmed in day-to-day business, we don't have time to step back and look at the big picture and get creative."
But as district attorney, shouldn't she make the time?
Yes, she says, but explains the reality of her administration.
"I took office and, boom, there was a 60-day session. Last time, it was a 30-day session, and it was right after Bruce's death. I'd like to think I was 100 percent, but I'm not sure I was."
Restoring integrity
As Brandenburg deals with these larger issues, she also has some substantial personnel issues to tackle. One of her campaign promises was to restore integrity and respect to an office whose hallmark, she said, "is a mass exodus of employees."
And she pledged to organize the district attorney's office in a more businesslike manner.
Her employees seem to admire her prowess in doing that. "Kari never procrastinates," says Joe Paone, one of Brandenburg's three chief deputy district attorneys. "She puts our feet to the fire: 'No, not tomorrow, let's do it now.' "
The district attorney's office of the Second Judicial District (which encompasses only one county, Bernalillo) has about 265 employees; 97 of those are attorneys. Paone says the example she sets for them — her personal work ethic and spirit of consensus-building — is especially important in today's economic climate.
"This is the first time I recall," says Paone (and he has worked for every Bernalillo Country DA since 1973, including the senior Brandenburg), "that there's absolutely nothing to offer employees, no pay raises."
In Yontz's mind, the difference Brandenburg makes as DA is simple. "Listen," he says, "there are two kinds of people. People who trust their employees and people who don't. Kari is one who does."
Brandenburg is known for valuing her employees, doing the things bosses do that make working for them rewarding. Says Deborah DePalo, chief deputy district attorney for the Metropolitan Court, "Improving morale isn't as simple as it sounds. It really does take some major adjustments in people's attitudes and it takes quite a bit of time. Kari has improved office morale considerably."
"Kari's genuine," she says. "A lot of people are personable but with a little time, you realize it isn't genuine."
Family life
Brandenburg was the first child born to James and Marge Brandenburg. A brother quickly followed, and then a 4-year-old sister (a child from James' first marriage) came to live with them after her mother was killed in an airplane crash. Another sister was born a few years later.
You might say Brandenburg was a spirited youngster. She recalls leading her siblings out the back door at Sunday school and over to the Fiesta Lanes bowling alley every week. Years later, she says she learned that her parents also ditched occasionally, to get a cup of coffee together at a nearby restaurant.
Although some folks have compared Brandenburg to the female equivalent of an Eagle Scout, Brandenburg says she was never a Girl Scout. "No way!" she says. "To me it was just another organization with rules I had to follow."
In about the sixth grade, she says, Brandenburg thought it seemed like the parents of the adopted children on her block loved their kids more. So she wrote a letter to the state Human Services department asking if she could be placed for adoption.
Brandenburg says her mother still laughs about getting the call from the state and telling the staff worker, "Yes, that sounds like Kari."
That experience may have started Brandenburg thinking about adopting children, but it was something she talked about through high school and college with a boyfriend she had through those years. "We planned out lives together," she said. "He wanted to be a lawyer, I wanted to be a DA, and we wanted to adopt kids."
Later, a bout of endometriosis prompted a doctor to mention adoption. Now, Brandenburg has four children, all adopted: Brandi, 18; Justin, 14; and Savannah, 13, whom she adopted with her second husband, Ron Koch, who died a year before Pasternack died; and Ben, 6, whom she adopted with Pasternack. A second child she adopted with Koch, a daughter named Skye Elizabeth, died of sudden infant death syndrome, at 4 months old.
Brandenburg has remained friends with past men in her life, including the high school boyfriend.
"We talked recently and laughed because we've done everything we said we wanted to do — just not together."
She also remains friends with the first man she married while they were law students, and she says she buried old wounds from her divorce from Koch during his illness just before his death.
Lifelong dream
That she loves the mind of a lawyer seems obvious. Her parents recall her saying at a very young age that she wanted to be a "lawlor."
Brandenburg remembers going through her father's briefcase at night and deciding she wanted to be district attorney when she grew up.
She recalls that her father discouraged her ambition to be a lawyer, which served to further inspire her to do it. Her father confirms that today, saying, "I've always felt that a woman is at a disadvantage when you're in the art of persuasion.
"If you're a trial lawyer, people — including women — are more inclined to give credibility to the man," he says. "Maybe that's the father complex. I think most kids listen to their dad more than to their mother. I know that's changed a little, but I think it's tough for women. I think they compensate for it by getting more intense, strident and even defensive."
Getting her law degree would take Brandenburg to Texas, but she says she always planned to come back. She went to Trinity University, in San Antonio, and to Southern Methodist University, in Dallas. "I wanted to be close to my grandparents," who lived in Bay City, Texas.
The feeling was mutual, says her mother: "I don't think they knew they had any other grandchildren."
Brandenburg visited them almost every weekend and thrived on their attention, soaking up everything she could learn from her grandmother about cooking. "I love to cook," Brandenburg says.
"It's a Southern tradition, to feed people."
That's why she bakes banana bread for the grand jury on its last day. "These people give up so much of their time to serve on a grand jury. I think they deserve it."
She used to spend all day Sunday cooking a big meal, when Pasternack was alive. "Bruce loved my cooking — fried chicken, mashed potatoes, homemade biscuits, pecan pie — even though sometimes he'd say, 'Living in this house is a glucose tolerance test.' "
Pasternack was diagnosed with Type 1 diabetes as an adult, and Brandenburg says he joked that it was her cooking, even though his mother also had the disease.
Brandenburg says Pasternack had to give himself insulin shots seven or eight times a day in his stomach. He often injected through his shirt, which is how medical officials think he may have contracted the strep A infection that killed him, she says.
Belief in justice
Many are intrigued to learn that Brandenburg was married to Koch, who defended several Catholic priests against charges of child molestation in the '90s — and was later married to Pasternack, who represented dozens of men and women in the '90s who said they were victims of sexual abuse by Catholic priests.
But what linked them all, Brandenburg says, was a keen sense of outrage at injustice.
The senior Brandenburg described his daughter and Pasternack as being alike but on separate poles. "They kind of deserved each other," he says. "They were both very opinionated and headstrong."
At Pasternack's funeral, Brandenburg recalls saying during the eulogy: "He was a difficult man. Very difficult."
Here's what difficult looks like: Pasternack went to bed every night at 8 p.m. He didn't vary his schedule. So when Brandenburg invited guests over for dinner, she would tell them in advance what was going to happen. "I'd say, 'At some point, Bruce is going to get up and leave the table. Then he's going to go upstairs, put his pajamas on, come stand on the landing and stare out over us and then go to bed. It's not that you've done anything wrong. It's just Bruce.' "
Pasternack once told Brandenburg that the two wouldn't have arguments if she'd just do everything he told her to do. Brandenburg recalls, "I said, 'Do you understand the problem with that comment?' "
Some people — people who don't have complicated spouses, for instance — might wonder why Brandenburg would put up with such a difficult man. But women who have been married for a long time will tell you that there comes a day when your husband becomes family, that whatever his oddities and eccentricities, they become character traits that you accept.
Just as she had done as a child, Brandenburg found ways around Pasternack's difficult personality. "We'd plan road trips, and the kids and I would try to find ways to ditch him so he wouldn't want to come along or we'd try to fly separately. He was very difficult to travel with."
What she misses is that legal mind. "We used to just sit around the table and talk for hours," she says. "That's what I miss."
She says that in a lot of ways, he was her best friend. "I realized I couldn't be him — in terms of intellectual brilliance and eloquence — but I could become more of myself in terms of speaking from the heart in responding to him.
"I tell my kids now that you have to be your own best friend. I guess you're the only one who's going to be with you your whole life."
Day to Day
Brandenburg gets up during the week at 5 a.m., waters the plants, feeds the kids and takes them to school. A babysitter picks up the kids from school, makes their dinner when needed and stays until about 5:30 p.m. Ben goes to bed about 8 p.m. and by 8:30 p.m., Brandenburg starts on paperwork from the office for an hour or two. When she goes into the office on weekends, she sometimes brings a kid or two with her.
One night a week, Brandenburg plays softball and usually takes Ben with her. No, the Land Sharks (her team) are not very good.
"I used to think I was a jock," Brandenburg says. "I used to run track in high school. But I think the reality is that I'm not a jock anymore."
She blames her mother for giving her a Martha Stewart image to live up to. Her office is decorated in the same manner as her home, which — depending on your point of view — is either a "home and country" look or, as Pasternack called it, "bag lady decor."
"They're all sentimental things," Brandenburg says. Landscape paintings her father did, furniture from grandparents and great-grandparents, knickknacks here and there, and lots of inspirational plaques in her office:
"If you are not living on the edge, you are taking up too much space."
"Of course, I want to save the world, she said, but I was hoping to do it from the comfort of my regular life."
And this one: "She said she usually cried at least once each day not because she was sad, but because the world was so beautiful and life was so short."
On the other end of her office, the bookcases are filled with tomes like "Bloodstain Pattern Analysis" and "Advances in Fingerprint Technology."
What Lies Ahead
Meanwhile, Pasternack lives on in the couple's son, Ben. "He was born negotiating," says Brandenburg. "When it's time for a shower, he'll say, 'Let's make a deal.' "
Recently, she was angry with him and said, "Benjamin, what am I going to do with you?" and he said, "Well, you can't sell me, because I'm the only kid you've got who likes you."
When asked what she thought the future held for her in terms of relationships, she said, "I don't think about it — what will be, will be. I always wanted a family, and I have my family. I could see me getting married, and I could see me not getting married."
She has publicly said she wants a second term as DA, but admits she may want six terms. "But on my death bed," she says, "if I had a choice to have been DA for six terms or only one term — but I acted with integrity — I would take the latter."
After a few minutes of discussing the fears most Americans have now about their futures — watching retirement funds dwindle and having to change plans to incorporate working longer at another job — Brandenburg said, "I would love being a Wal-Mart greeter."
You get the feeling she means it.
