Roger was a lot better man than his foes would have you believe

During the period when his replacement was being chosen, retired District Attorney David Roger kept his mouth shut, declining to talk to the news media about all the things being said about him.

Between the public comments made by Clark County commissioners and the three contenders for the job, many of the statements became accepted as fact without anyone challenging their veracity.

Roger was essentially pilloried.

Now that defense attorney Steve Wolfson has been chosen to complete Roger's term, Roger agreed to an interview Tuesday to discuss some comments made about him.

The harshest came from Commissioner Chris Giunchigliani. "Nobody was happier than I when the former DA decided to leave that position."

It became accepted as undisputed fact that too many death penalty cases were filed, that morale in the DA's office was terrible, that prosecutors overcharged defendants and that a myriad of problems could be blamed on Roger. (He addresses specific points in Saturday's column.)

The three contenders -- Wolfson, Las Vegas attorney John Hunt and Office of Special Counsel boss Drew Christensen -- all promised they would do things differently than Roger. Wolfson was the one chosen and the one who will have to work within budgetary restraints to accomplish the changes he promised.

Referring to the county commissioners and the contenders, Roger said, "I don't think they understand the job. Our job is to protect and serve. All I heard were personal attacks."

Voters elected Roger to the job in 2002 after his profile soared as one of the prosecutors in the Ted Binion murder case. He wasn't a natural campaigner because he is a shy person, and shyness is sometimes interpreted as pompous. But he said that since he became DA in 2003, the crime rate dropped 45 percent, and he provided the stats to back it up.

In 2003, the FBI statistics collected from the Metropolitan Police Department showed 480 crimes per 100,000 people, a total of 4,647 crimes. In 2011, there were 330 crimes for every 100,000 people, or 4,609 crimes -- a drop of 45 percent according to the crime index.

Roger certainly isn't grabbing all the credit for that; after all, he's now working as an attorney for the Police Protective Association. But as DA, his job was to work with law enforcement to build cases to protect the community. A decrease in crime is one indicator of the job he did for nine years before resigning one year into a four-year term (my biggest gripe about him).

Was he a tough-on-crime guy? Absolutely. The public seemed fine with that, electing him three times. He was the only Republican to win partisan countywide elections in Clark County, where the majority of registered voters are Democrats.

He and Giunchigliani became overt foes when, in the spring of 2011, he refused to cut his office's budget by 9 percent, saying he couldn't do the job if he didn't have the resources. In the end, his budget was cut by 1.5 percent in that round of cuts. Apparently, he was persuasive.

The distaste some commissioners showed for Roger seems to stem from personality. He didn't kowtow to them. A serious man, he wasn't as likeable and funny as his predecessors, especially Stewart Bell and the late Rex Bell, both raconteurs.

But in interviews with sources about Roger's strengths and weaknesses, here's what I heard repeatedly. He was honest and had high ethical standards. He was tough but consistent.

The negative? He was slow to change, had a narrow focus and was rigid.

This quiet, serious man has been vilified for the past two months, and his reputation has been maligned unfairly.

The conventional wisdom would be that he was a terrible DA, but that's not accurate.

Somebody needed to say that, so vituperation isn't accepted as fact.

Jane Ann Morrison's column appears Monday, Thursday and Saturday. Email her at Jane@reviewjournal.com or call her at (702) 383-0275. She also blogs at lvrj.com/blogs/Morrison.