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Show The Enterprise Review , December IS. 1976 Page 19b Docs Utah's Attorney General Represent the State? by Parker M. Nielson Public statements of the Utah Attorney General-elec- t call into question the legitimacy of his discharge of that G U E S T C 0 L U M N office. If we are to accept on its face his campaign rhetoric, our new Attorney General will concentrate his efforts on cleaning up pornography, capital punishment and reversing the Supreme Court stand on the abortion issue. If we believe the recent public statements of the Attorney General-elec- t, he will be concerned to implement the death penalty, true to his campaign promises. None of these matters are the proper concern of the state Attorney General, or at least his official involvement in them ought to be minor. The Attorney General is legal counsel to the State and all of its agencies. His role is to prosecute or defend all causes to which the State is a party. He is also to render legal opinions on questions which arise co icerning the statutory duties of, for example, the Land Board or the Business Regulation Department, or the many other departments and agencies which conduct the business of the State in much the same way that the legal department of any large corporation would do. Moral judgements are not among the duties of the Attorney General. The administration of criminal justice is, but primarily in his capacity to exercise supervisory powers over the county attorneys of the state, and that, moreover, is only one facet of the Attorney General's duties. The Attorney General is also a lawyer, aiid obligated to conduct himeself according to the standards which govern the legal profession generally. That duty renders suspect, at least, any urging that voters should reject his opponent in the recent election on the grounds that he has defended convicted murderers, for example. Equal justice under the law is the duty of all lawyers, particularly those occupying high office, to secure. Any effort to deny that right is unbecoming, if not questionable on ethical grounds. the campaign rhetoric. One can dismiss perhaps Politicians fish with any lures that appear promising, and are pragmatists more often that moralists. Mr. Hansen got himself elected, and by an impressive margin, but one must wonder at the sporting nature of one who employs such tactics while riding the crest of public sentiment. It is one thing to debate in a political campaign the merits of mattters like capital punishment, pornography or none of which involve directly the duties of the abortion Attorney General because they are so dependent upon decisions of the United States Supreme Court and quite another to manipulate the Attorney General's office to achieve essentially moral goals. The right, if there could be considered such a thing, of Gary Gilmore to insist that the State execute him, or the presentation of arguments concerning "Gilmores right to make a rational choice within the framework of his circumstances and historical, and existential treaties could religious hardly be considered the business of the State. The proper concerns of the State in such an issue seem confined to the constitutionality of the statute under which Gilmore was convicted and the adequacy of the procedures leading up to his sentencing in due process context. By all outward appearances, Attorney General elect, Robert Hansen has gone beyond the legal matters involved in many cases having moral overtones, of which the Gilmore case is but a prominent example. The propriety of capital punishment is for the judiciary to sort out, based largely upon the Constitution of the United States. Gary Gilmore is a coincidental focal point in that process which, unfortunately, thrust Utah into the limelight. For Mr. Hansen to go beyond the presentation of the interests of the State on the legal questions involved, involving himself in the question of whether Gilmore ought to live or die and going so far as to assist in securing counsel who will advance his death wish and even presenting their legal arguments for them, raises the legitimate question of whether Mr. Hansen is office. acting within the proper scope Examples could be multiplied, on wide ranging subjects such as pornography, gun control and abortion. The activist role Mr. Hansen has assumed in these matters, including his frequent press conferences to discuss the moral basis of his point of view, are questionable under the standards of his profession and doubtfully within the scope of the office he holds. There is real danger in an Attorney General becoming involved, for instance, in the moral judgment of whether particular books, magazines or movies are fit for public consumption. Moral judgments are, at best, highly personal and best left to the legislature, or the courts, to declare. The Attorney General is, after all, a member of the executive and his involvement in such matters raises the question of whose interest he really represents. of-h- is Pragmatic Dogmatics Matheson and Main Street by Kent Shearer At a time when Blacks and Labor each remind Jimmy Carter of his electoral indebtednesses to their numbers, , it is appropriate to chronicle the pivotal general Scott election roll played for Governor-elec- t Matheson by Salt Lake, in general, and its commercial community in particular. As the November 2 ballots were having counted, the Democrat, Matheson 28 counties 11 other of the but carried came into Salt Lake with an 882 vote deficit. Had he been able to do no better in the capital county than did his fellow Democrat Moss (who lost it by an over 4,000 spread), Republican Vernon B. Romney would have achieved victory by a fairly comfortable margin. Given even a 50-5- 0 Salt Lake split, Romney would be the one awaiting a January Gubernatorial inauguration. Instead, Matheson won the county by which nearly 33,500 votes: a differential more than accounted for his six percent statewide triumph. In large measure, the decision can be attri critical ex-Senat- or pro-Mathes- on buted to the calculation of its business A element that he was one of them. Republicans and Independents for Matheson advertisement on election eve read like a Whos Who of Main Street. The Matheson margin was forged by running ahead of normal Democratic showings on the mercantile-oriente- d benches, not in welfare-oriente- d Central City nor on the d west side. Why Matheson's business appeal? Rightly or wrongly, the entrepreneurial and professional classes perceived him to be one of them. Romney, they thought, was too consumer-orienteecclesiastical and intelMatheson, on the lectually pedestrian. other hand, had spent his adult life as a corporate bureaucrat for two giant enterprises: Anaconda and Union Pacific. He and had a was comfortably back-sli- d darting, if not deep, intelligence. Accordingly, Salt Lake's commercial circles bestowed their blessings, their hosannas and their votes upon him, and in the process made Matheson governor. Only the future will tell whether the labor-oriente- d, trust thus accorded Matheson will be vindicated or not. For one, I hope it will, but reserve serious personal doubts. When confidence appears justified, this column shall note it just as readily as it shall indicate when, from time to time, your servants judgment is that tradesmen deluded themselves as to Mathesons kinship. of It is in that vein that I observe that two six Matheson appointments the first should stir apprehension relative to the direction the new Utah administration will take. In one instance, the Governor-elec- t named the prior Deputy Director of the State Social Services Department to become Utah's Finance Director. In the other, he designated a former television newsman as Development Services Director, a post that oversees, inter alia, Industrial Promotion. Both positions seem to cry for business not bureaucratic or repotorial background and expertise. This apprehension may turn to anguish once the State of the State message is promulgated. But that is another story for another time. |