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Peace and crime in state’s tiniest county

William Ferchland
Dan Thrift / Tahoe Daily Tribune / A bell is used to alert Richmond to a visitor to his office.
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MARKLEEVILLE – The office was a bit difficult to find. Before the recent move, the Alpine County district attorney’s work station was a cubbyhole of an office in the old, but visible, courthouse in Markleeville.

With the help of directions supplied by the chamber of commerce, Will Richmond, a district attorney in solitude from prosecuting in the least populated California county, was found in a rectangle-shaped office on a side street.

He was on the phone. An assistant was gone, walking to the courthouse a few blocks away, leaving him as the only staff member in the office.



It’s like that sometimes for Richmond, district attorney of Alpine County, population 1,209 according to a 2003 estimate by the U.S. Census Bureau.

A knee-jerk description of Richmond could be a fish out of water. Raised and educated in the Bay Area, Richmond received his undergraduate degree from Stanford University. He went to law school in San Francisco at UC Hastings College of the Law.



On June 26, 1969, he was admitted into the State Bar of California.

The 36 years of experience in law, which sent him to Santa Clara County and private practice in other counties, allowed Richmond to perform his duties as district attorney of Alpine County.

“It would be a really difficult place to learn your trade as a prosecutor or lawyer,” he said. “There isn’t enough opportunity to be exposed to the full spectrum of what a district attorney might do. You have cases of all kinds here but they don’t occur in the same volume.”

Four years ago, there were about 150 cases, Richmond said. Now it’s about 400.

While there is the absence of chief, assistant or deputy district attorneys, Richmond does receive help from Karen Dustman. The holder of many titles, including legal services specialist and victim and witness coordinator, Dustman has a law degree and is able to fill in for Richmond when necessary.

Not surprisingly, crime here typically revolves around the county’s two ski resorts, Kirkwood and Bear Valley. A Kirkwood employee pleaded guilty to one count of forcible rape earlier this month.

Last year a snowboarder at Kirkwood collided with a skier and was charged with assault and battery, Richmond said. The impact contained so much force that the skier, a Santa Cruz surgeon, had trouble holding medical instruments.

Then there was a case of snowmobilers riding while drunk.

Misdemeanors reign. Theft, ski pass fraud, trespassing and public intoxication occur frequently in the winter. An ice fisherman might be charged with having an extra pole in the water.

“You think you’re huddled over your hole in the ice and nobody is going to care,” Richmond said.

In the summer, cases involve construction matters such as pollution and illegal development.

“It’s a slowed-down pace, but when you put it all together it’s not quite as laid back as everybody thinks,” said Alpine County Superior Court Judge Richard Specchio, who shares duties with Presiding Judge David Devore.

Colleen Hemingway remembered prosecuting many drunken driving cases when she was Alpine County’s district attorney in the late 1990s.

One case in particular is stored well in her memory. A woman driving to the Bay Area tailgated another woman on Highway 88. After a couple miles, the driver in front pulled to the shoulder. But instead of passing, the woman also pulled to the side, got out and pounded the driver’s head into the car, Hemingway said.

The woman was charged with assault causing great bodily injury but was released from custody. She did not return to court and is wanted by the county to face the charges.

“I’d love to find her still,” said Hemingway, who lives in the Carson Valley.

While Sierra County shares the distinction of having a one-person district attorney’s office, Hemingway said members of the California District Attorneys Association treated her “like their little sister which I thought was fun.”

As a prosecutor with other counties, Richmond was envious of the Alpine County position. As a circuit prosecutor on environment issues, which basically allowed him to prosecute cases involving erosion, stream zones and the like, Richmond’s life embraces the outdoors and the rustic.

His house rests in a forest and is powered by sun and wind. It has no phone but there is one spot that provides service for a cell phone, albeit with static. He has an urge to end his cable service, yet that would mean an end to watching Stanford basketball games.

El Dorado County Assistant District Attorney Hans Uthe has worked with Richmond on several occasions.

“He is professional, ethical, experienced and just all around very knowledgeable about his profession, and I think the people of Alpine County should be very pleased to have someone of that caliber holding that office over there,” he said.

– E-mail William Ferchland at wferchland@tahoedailytribune.com


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