Workman trial falls in difficult gray area

The case against former Salt Lake County auditor Craig Sorensen was cut and dried.

The case against County Mayor Nancy Workman is more complicated.

Sorensen recently pleaded guilty to felony misuse of public money after stealing gas from the county. Workman was charged with a felony after she hired county employees to do accounting at the Boys and Girls Clubs of South Valley under the direction of her daughter.

"When I hear 'misuse of public funds,' it's typically something where they have used government money to buy themselves a car," Brigham Young University criminal law professor Marguerite Driessen said.

"This falls into a difficult gray area," University of Utah law professor Erik Luna said. "On paper, yes, there is criminal conduct. But is this (violation) of a sufficient character to spend some serious time in prison?"

District Attorney David Yocom says he doesn't need to show direct personal benefit to prove the crime of misusing public money. Nevertheless, Luna says, the circumstances of Workman's case may call for a softer hand.

The mayor faces up to 20 years behind bars if she is found guilty, and as a convicted felon — even if she were given no jail time — she would be permanently barred from voting, "one of the fundamental civil liberties that people have shed blood over," Luna said.

Rather than Sorensen's case, Luna says, Workman's situation is more akin to the Olympic bribery trial, where Tom Welch and Dave Johnson successfully fought charges of bribery.

A Deseret Morning News poll conducted last January showed more than three-quarters of Utah residents believed the pair should be acquitted, partly on the basis that they had not personally benefited.

Still, the law holds public servants to a higher standard because they can more easily abuse power and the public purse. And Yocom can credibly argue that Workman benefited at least indirectly from the arrangement. Luna likens it to Workman providing county employees to dig ditches for a relative's construction company.

The statute calls for justice; the circumstances may call for mercy.

Can the two be reconciled?

An independent panel convened by Yocom, which concluded there was enough evidence to support the charges, explicitly avoided any conclusions with regard to that question: "We give no opinion as to how prosecutorial discretion should be exercised in the matter."

The person with that discretion is Yocom, and he is not likely to show his more sensitive side given the drubbing he has received from Workman's camp. She and her allies have repeatedly accused him of political grandstanding.