The outgoing DA, Beth Heckert, had served in that role since 2013 and decided not to run for re-election. Throughout her tenure, she oversaw a variety of cases, as well as major statewide legislative changes. JPR’s Jane Vaughan recently spoke with Heckert about her time as DA, changes over the years and what’s next for her.
Jane Vaughan: So I'm going to start with talking about why you wanted to be District Attorney for Jackson County in the first place. Why did you decide to run for the position?
Beth Heckert: Well, at that point, I had been in the office for a number of years. I started here in 1988 and so when Mark Huddleston was retiring, I'd been the chief for a number of years, and you kind of think of it as a little bit of a progression like,' Okay, I've been the chief now, so now I'll become the DA.' And just the work that I've done in the county, working with victims for so many years, and really appreciating the work that my whole office does, I wanted to see the hard work that Mark Huddleston had put in to continue. And so it just was kind of a natural progression.
JV: And what had you done, tell me about your work before that. How did that sort of prepare you to be DA, before you were chief?
BH: When I graduated from law school, this was the first office I came to work in, and so I'd only worked in Jackson County. I'd been given a lot of opportunities to work in the office, just to work on different projects. I prosecuted child abuse cases for a lot of years, and so I worked with a lot of community partners. And when I was running for DA, it really kind of dawned on me and made me realize how many lives I had impacted in the years that I had been doing the work. Because you're just doing your job every day. You're involved in the case, but then that case is gone, and the next case comes, and my husband and my other group of people who were really working on my campaign, we were out knocking on doors and just talking with people. And I was just amazed how many people I ran into knocking on their door where they would say, 'Oh yeah, you prosecuted my daughter's case, my granddaughter's case, my case.' And over the years, I'd handled thousands of cases, so of course, I didn't remember all of those, but that really impacted me, just to feel that impact that I had had on people's lives and the positives that had come out of it. Because often we don't hear that. We're in the middle of when they're in the trauma and the worst things that have happened to them, and that's when we're dealing with them, and I don't hear the follow up stories afterwards that, well, they went on and graduated from high school, and then they went and became a nurse, or they became a this, or they became that, and that was really just very impactful to me, and I had never really thought about it.
JV: I mean, you're so mired in it every day, you're so busy, I'm sure, going from case to case to case that you don't have the time to step back and really think about the good things that can happen down the road for people as a result of your work. Was that something that you thought about when you were first deciding to even enter the legal field? Was that your sort of motivation, or why is this work important to you to do?
BH: I always wanted to be a prosecutor, so when I went to law school, that's what I intended to do. And I was maybe one of those kind of weird people that decided that in high school and never changed my trajectory. I think my parents influenced me on that, as far as saying, 'Well, you should go to law school.' And then I'd never known a prosecutor. I really had no idea what the job was. I probably had a Perry Mason kind of an idea of it, but I set my sights on that, and then just never really looked back. And I talked to people today that are thinking about going to law school, and I still think it was a great career choice for me. It has provided a good living for me during my life, and it's been very rewarding. It's just really a good profession.
JV: I was the same way. I've known I wanted to be a journalist since I was in high school, and here I am. So I've just stuck with it. Sometimes you get it right! Were there certain goals that you had when you first took over as DA? Do you feel like you've accomplished what you set out to through your tenure?
BH: When I first started, I think there were probably maybe 10 or 12 lawyers in the office, and we are now 22 lawyers in the office when we're fully staffed. So kind of growing our office. We were unfortunate to have someone decide to try to bomb our old office space, and that was right after I became the DA so we were fortunate that the county built us this beautiful building, and I really believe it's one of the nicest DA's offices in the state. When that man decided to try to bomb the office, that really changed, I think, the community's opinion of whether we really did need a new office. And then I got involved in the Oregon District Attorneys Association, and I was the president of that at one point. So that was more a little out of my comfort zone, to be more a statewide leader looking to see what are we doing as an organization, going up and talking to the legislature. Again, that was just an opportunity that kind of came along, not necessarily something I had planned, but when the opportunity came, I was like, 'Yeah, I think that would be really good. It would be good for Jackson County.' Jackson County had never really participated really heavily in the Oregon District Attorneys Association. I don't believe anybody had ever been the president before, and so that just was really another good opportunity that came along that we were able to take advantage of.
JV: That's great. And you mentioned the public's opinion in terms of getting a new building, and I'm curious about, I'm sure you've received some criticism in your role, maybe about whether or not to press charges against certain people, and so I'm wondering if you have any comment on that sort of the public's opinion, or maybe things that people don't understand about being DA or how that process works?
BH: Yeah, I think at times, we do get criticized sometimes for decisions we make, but I think overall, we have really good support in the community. I hear from a lot of folks when I have made tough decisions, I will get some criticism, but I'll also get somebody who reaches out that I don't know that it's like, 'Hey, I appreciate that you stood up for that, or that you're in a difficult position right now.' So I really feel like the community is supportive of law enforcement, and they're supportive of the District Attorney's office overall. Not to say there's not decisions we make where people don't necessarily understand why we would make that decision. And we've tried to really explain to folks, to try to do like a press release or really try to get the information out there because sometimes it's just misinformation. They believe this is the facts, and why wouldn't you prosecute that case if that was the facts, and then you're having to kind of explain like, 'Well, no, there actually were no witnesses, there was no physical evidence to prove that, and we have to prove it beyond a reasonable doubt.' So even though you might think like, 'Oh, I think they probably were guilty of that crime,' that's not the standard for us. And so I think once you kind of explain things to folks, and they have, hopefully, that trust in you and in what you've been doing over your career, that makes those decisions a little bit easier to accept when they do happen.
JV: So you were talking about public opinion and maybe having to make some difficult decisions. What have been your biggest challenges as DA?
BH: I mean, we've seen a lot of changes in the law. So that's a challenge as a DA. I prosecuted cases before we had . So Measure 11 is a mandatory prison sentence for certain types of crimes. And before we had Measure 11, for example, like child abuse, if you sexually touched a child who was under 14, you were looking at 16 months in prison and maybe just a county jail sentence and going into probation. But Measure 11 came in and gave mandatory prison sentences, so 75 months is the mandatory prison sentence now for a sex abuse in the first degree. So that really changed it. And just seeing those types of changes in the law, I mean, at first that was really difficult. Going through a decriminalization of drugs was really difficult on our community. I was opposed to that at the time, but when the law changes, that's what you live with. So that was just another issue. I think now that we were getting back to criminalization of small amounts of drugs, hopefully we'll see a change in our community because drugs have really been a difficulty in Jackson County. When it was decriminalized, the message there to me that I was concerned about was you were basically telling children or adults or whoever that drugs were not that big a deal, which was really the wrong message. There was a harsher penalty for a minor using alcohol than there was for them using heroin, and that was a terrible message that we were kind of putting out there to our families and children. So hopefully, we're seeing the change of that. It's not a super punitive thing that they've imposed, but we're at least getting people to get back into treatment, getting them back. Sometimes you do need to have that carrot and stick in order to get someone to go do treatment. And so that has been a big change that I've seen in our community, and I hope that we're on the right track now.
JV: Yeah, definitely a lot of changes. Since you've been here in 2012, the world has changed so much in general as well. Are there any cases, when you look back, any particular cases that have stuck with you from your time here?
BH: Oh, a lot of them. I've worked on a lot of cases. I've handled a lot of murder cases over the years. Those kinds of cases do impact you. You do remember them forever. And I think it just impacts you on maybe other cases that were, it seems kind of odd, but I remember the day my oldest son learned to ride a bicycle, I got called out on a case where a boy got killed by a drunk driver on a bicycle. And so that's kind of forever entwined with me in my mind. Every time I think about that, it's like, 'Oh, that boy.' So, yeah, they do impact you. I've met with lots of families over the years who were, like I said, going through the worst times at the moment.
JV: For sure. So I want to talk about your retirement. Why did you decide not to seek re-election after all these years as DA?
BH: It was time. I'm 62, and so I felt like it was time that way. I do want to do a lot of traveling and do some other things. I want to do that while I'm still healthy and feeling good. My husband had retired a few years before, so he'd been retired for a period of time, so that just was the right timing, I felt like, to go. And Patrick wanting to step up and become the district attorney. I felt like I was leaving the office in good hands.
JV: You mentioned traveling. What else do you want to do in your retirement? What are your plans?
BH: We have some property that we want to maybe develop over at the coast, so we have just a lot of different ideas, some work on our own house. Our kids don't live in the area, so we want to be able to get up and see them more often, to just do things like that, spend more time with family and friends, and maybe be a little more spontaneous. Like, 'Oh, that sounds like a fun thing to do. Let's just go and do it' and not have to be like, 'Oh, I have trial that week. No, we can't do that.'
JV: Right. And you said it's been difficult in a lot of ways. It's been a really busy tenure and some difficult cases. And it must be nice to be able to take a break and not have to be so tied to that sort of calendar. And you mentioned Patrick, so you're going to be replaced by the Chief Deputy District Attorney Patrick Green. What sort of problems do you think he's going to face in his tenure as he's coming in as DA?
BH: Well, hopefully he's got a good office here, good foundation to kind of start with. I know he has his own ideas of things that he might want to focus on. He worked a lot in domestic violence, and so I know that's an area that's really close to him that he wants to make improvements on and see what else we can do to try to alleviate those issues that we have in our community. But hopefully he's got just a good foundation to kind of build from for whatever his ideas might be or just what the future holds. Every time the legislature meets, they come up with something, and then we have to apply it. So sometimes you just never know what might be coming your direction. So I think that he's got some good ideas of ways to work from. We need to staff up the office. We're down lawyers, and we've had trouble hiring lawyers. We have a new lawyer starting in January after I leave that he'll get to work with. And so I think adding a few more lawyers to our roster will help us too to just spread out what kinds of programs that we can be involved in, what we can work on.
JV: Looking back on this, is there anything that you wish that you had done differently, or you seem pretty pleased with your career and how it's gone here?
BH: Yeah, I don't know that there would be things I might do differently. I think trying to do more community outreach is always a good thing. And we have good community outreach with the partners that we work with on a regular basis, the domestic violence people, the child abuse people. I think, looking back on it, maybe I could have done more work trying to make connections with the business community. But I think trying to make sure people understand what our role is. I do get a lot of letters from folks or information from people who are saying, 'Would you please investigate this? This happened to me', and we don't investigate. And so just kind of educating what our role is, that law enforcement has to do an investigation and then turn it over to us, and then we review it to see if it's a crime or not a crime, and if it's a crime we can actually prosecute. But there's a lot of those kinds of issues that maybe doing a little bit more outreach might help. And one thing that the legislature did a few years back was , and that has been really interesting. So what that bill is was it allows the district attorney to file a joint petition to actually get rid of someone's conviction or reduce the conviction. And that has been just really enlightening also for me to see how many changes people have made in their lives and how they really do deserve that second chance. You see people at their worst, and now you get to hear like, 'Oh, wow, they really did do well.' So we're not necessarily just always lock them up, throw away the key kind of a thing. I think my office has been very good at approaching a lot of different programs where we have kind of an open mind. Our drug courts, we're supportive of our drug courts, our mental health court. But hopefully with the programs and the changes people have made, I mean, I've had people come up to me and say, 'You sent me to prison, and it was the best thing that ever happened to me.' And again, that's very powerful to hear from somebody because you didn't want to send them to prison, but maybe that was the thing that finally got their attention when nothing else would.
