James P. Fox
NDAA’s new president, James (Jim) P. Fox, district attorney, San Mateo County, California, is no stranger to our organization’s mission, and as a career prosecutor in a large California jurisdiction, he is certainly familiar with the needs of the prosecutorial community.
San Mateo County is located just south of San Francisco. With a population of 720,000, it is home to 20 incorporated cities. The court employs 32 judicial officers, and the San Mateo District Attorney’s Office has a total of 53 full-time deputy district attorneys, five part-time deputies, 12 investigators and 40 support staff.
After listening to Mr. Fox talk about his career as a district attorney, it seems that he was destined to establish his outstanding legacy in the field of public service. Even in college, he attended city council meetings for entertainment. “I was always fascinated with the government and watching it run,” he said.
He began his career in prosecution in 1970 as a deputy district attorney in San Mateo County and, after only a short time, he knew he was fit to serve as the district attorney for the county. “There I was, a six-month lawyer prosecuting misdemeanors and I decided I was going right to the top,” he reminisced. Mr. Fox spent four years serving as a deputy district attorney before he accepted the position of city attorney in Half Moon Bay, California, where he grew up. He worked in private practice for nine years until, in 1981, the San Mateo district attorney at the time (Fox’s predecessor) announced that he would not run for re-election. Mr. Fox saw an opportunity to fulfill his dream, and with his wife’s support, Mr. Fox declared his candidacy for DA, running on his platform of a diverse legal career in both criminal law and city litigation. His campaign was successful and Mr. Fox took office in January 1983. He has been unopposed since. Interestingly, Mr. Fox’s predecessor also served unopposed from 1958 until his retirement. “The incumbent DA in San Mateo County is never challenged,” he noted.
When Mr. Fox began his work, the San Mateo County District Attorney’s Office was responsible for misdemeanors, felonies and civil cases for the state. At the time, indeterminate sentencing laws in the state of California caused the office to file about 800 felony cases and try 100 felony jury trials a year. Determinate sentencing was established in 1977, and since the ’70s, the crime rate in San Mateo County has plunged. Mr. Fox said, “Our crime rate is extremely low for a metropolitan jurisdiction. So far in 2007, in a county with a population of 720,000, we have seen a total of five murder cases.” This is a dramatic shift, not just from the 1970s, but from about 15 years ago. In 1992 San Mateo County’s East Palo Alto was a poor city with a population of only 23,000 and an extremely high crime rate. It was the scene of 42 murders that year alone. Now, the average cost of a home in East Palo Alto is between $800,000 and $1 million and the murder rate is almost non-existent. “If poverty is related to crime,” Mr. Fox said, “then criminals probably can’t afford to live in my county.”
With such a low crime rate, challenges facing the San Mateo County District Attorney’s Office are limited. However Mr. Fox did highlight some state-level challenges that he has dedicated himself to combating. As the co-chair of the California District Attorneys Association’s Legislative Committee, Mr. Fox has placed himself at the forefront of many state-level issues including the problem of prison overcrowding. Currently, the California prison system houses approximately 170,000 inmates although capacity varies from 100,000 to 130,000. New efforts to release prisoners to relieve overcrowding could potentially put 70,000 convicted criminals back on the street. “This is a significant issue for public safety officers,” Mr. Fox said.
Mr. Fox is also a member of the California Commission on the Fair Administration of Justice which focuses on reducing the likelihood of wrongful convictions by promoting legislation that would counteract this phenomenon (i.e. electronic recording of police interrogations, etc.).
San Mateo County has been home to several high profile cases during Mr. Fox’s tenure. Just recently, Norman Hsu, fundraiser for Hillary Clinton, turned himself over to authorities after he fled a charge of fraud in the 1990s. San Mateo County was also the home of the infamous repressed memory case of the 1990s in which George Franklin was convicted of murdering an eight-year-old child. A federal judge has since reversed that conviction. More recently and after a a change of venue, Scott Peterson was tried and convicted in San Mateo for the murder of his wife Laci and unborn son.
Mr. Fox has a long history with NDAA and is excited about serving as the organization’s president in 2007-2008. He has been a member of NDAA since he first took office in 1983. He became a board member in 1996, serving as a state director for NDAA while at the same time serving as president of the California District Attorneys Association. He has held several other NDAA Board positions during his time with the organization including director-at-large and vice-president. He was a member of the first National Advocacy Center Oversight Committee, served on the executive committee of former NDAA presidents Bob McCulloch and Paul Walsh, and co-chaired several other NDAA committees.
“I am looking forward to serving as president in the coming year and see a great future for NDAA.” He cited the “John R. Justice Prosecutors and Defenders Incentive Act of 2007” as a promising legislative endeavor for the organization. Mr. Fox thinks that it will become a crisis for public safety if prosecutors’ offices can’t recruit and retain good prosecutors. “I am proud of NDAA’s efforts to promote [this] bill. It would be outstanding for John R. Justice to be recognized in perpetuity for his efforts.”
He encourages law school graduates to look into prosecution. As a veteran of both private practice and prosecution, Mr. Fox has experience in different types of legal practice. “Criminal prosecution is the purest form of practicing law,” he explained. “We are obligated to seek justice. We aren’t in it for the money and we aren’t trying to make money for our clients. We are trying to ensure that those people who break the law are held accountable.”
In Mr. Fox’s limited spare time he enjoys spending time with his family. He has been married since 1968 and has three children, one of whom followed in his father’s footsteps and is a deputy county counsel in the county council’s office, serving as the city representative for the county. His daughter is a teacher and his youngest son is the associate editor of Bass Player magazine. He also has four grandchildren ranging in age from three to six. “I am lucky to live very close to my family. I cook dinner for everyone every Sunday.”
NDAA anticipates an excellent, productive year under Mr. Fox’s leadership and we are certain that his impressive prosecutorial career will serve our organization well.
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