hello. i'm damian trujillo. today the chief prosecutor is in our studio. we'll sit down with jeff rosen. ed which is your comunidad comunidad de valle ♪ we begin today with the ywca of

the silicon valley. . with many is kelly ramirez to talk about important issue and program that they sponsor. welcome to the show. >> thank you. >> tell us a brief story about the ywca. >> well, the ywca's mission the is to empower women and eliminate racism. we do that through programs to help with domestic violence, rape crisis counseling, youth service and child care. >> and one way to get the word out is walk a mile in her shoes. tell us about the event. i participated off camera. i participated in this. i did wear women's shoes. but they were flat. they were not heals. but tell us about the premise. >> so walk a mile in her shoes is held during april. april is sexual assault awareness month. and this is kind of a light

hearted approach to a very serious subject of sexual asaul. assault. and we get men involved, and they walk a mile. that mile in her shoes type of thing to bring attention to sexual assault in the community. we engage with men because we feel it's very important that they participate and assist us with really changing attitudes about sexual assault in the community. >> and your title says walking a mile in her shoes. and it's eye opening when you're out participating in the great event. you deal with domestic violence side of the problem that we're facing in the silicon valley. i mean, just recently we've seen domestic violence go deadly here in marin county and in santa clara county. are we not getting the message out? we as an entire community. what seems to be the problem that we're resorting to deadly violence when it comes to this?

>> well, i know for 2011 in santa clara county. we did experience domestic violence related homicides that occurred. the previous year we had five incidents. so quite a bit of a spike within a one-year time period. we're not sure what attributed to it. some may be cuts to law enforcement. cuts to preventive education in the area of domestic violence. as far as the domestic violence department. we're focusing on getting out more in the community and providing preventive education strategies. not only to health care providers and community based organizations, but also middle school and high school youth. >> how vital as the bistander, as neighbors to report something that we think might be wrong? >> it's extremely vital. really without the community recognizing that this is not

only a social epidemic but also a legal epidemic. we need people to speak up and to be able to make the connections and to really safe lives. >> enoff a program called l la familia. >> we do. we have the la familia program. victims of domestic violence. we provide culturally competent services. we keep in mind the beliefs, tradition and value of the community when we provide the service. a lot of times, individuals seeking service, one of the barriers they may face in the services is they may feel that the services would go against those core values and beliefs. sko we want to provide the services in a way where the two things are in conflict. >> it is a conflict in many families.

it is an event that takes place annually, and it's coming up in may. and this is where we in silicon valley a number of organizations, corporations, health care providers, all those types of different industries nominate a woman, a high level woman in their company to win this award and they're nominated. and we're recognizing them for their contributions in the workforce as well as recognizing the companies they work for for allowing women to get to the position. >> it's a very good program. and one that should be widespread throughout the bay area. there's the address and the

website. thank you for the information that we're doing. we'll see what maybe his office is doing about that. up next, stay with us. ♪ beth! hi! looking good. you've lost some weight. thanks. you noticed. these clothes are too big, so i'm donating them. how'd you do it? eating right -- whole grain. [ female announcer ] people who choose more whole grain tend to weigh less than those who don't. multi-grain cheerios -- 5 whole grains, 110 calories. creamy, dreamy peanut butter taste in a tempting new cereal. mmm! [ female announcer ] new multi-grain cheerios peanut butter.

it's a nice annual mother's day walk against cancer. it's put on by latinas going through cancer. with me is maxine. welcome to the show. >> thank you. >> tell us about this year's event. we're walkg from city hall to the mexican heritage plantation. >> yes, we're starting on may 13th, mother's day. the walk begins at 9:00 to the mexican heritage plaza. we end up with lunch and raffles and networking and just getting to know each other. >> it's been nine years. you've been doing it for eight of nine years. >> that's correct. what have we seen that improved in those eight or nine years? >>. >> well, they've come up with

several programs during those years. exercise and nutrition. and all sorts of prevention of screening, doing that early on. there was also a program called the program -- the patient navigator. now the patient navigator is a program that helps people from diagnosis to end of life through the hospital process. and in terms of dealing with doctors and someone is there with them to help them through the language barrier and their culture. >> because it can be intimidating. >> absolutely, if you don't understand, then you're afraid. dealing with the museum is totally scary.

not knowing what's going to happen next is too stressful. >> why are you so involved in this? it's started by a colleague, isabelle. why are you so involved in bringing this to fruition? >> ten years ago my older sister was diagnosed with breast cancer. and i'm happy to say because of all the support and programs out there she's been cancer free as of march of 2012. that keeps me going. not only for her. for our other friends and family members that go through it as well. my sister is not the only one affected by the disease, there are thousands of people with this. >> family support is crucial? >> a lot of family support.

because the person with my sister, from my own experience. she felt like she was at fault somehow. and that she was bringing this burden onto her family. and we had to learn ourselves how to handle the disease because nonof us were ready for any of this. so by associating with the programs and getting the education through their programs, it made us feel much more better and together and held us together through the trying times. >> there are walks across the nation inviting breast cancer. they're all special. this one seems particularly special. it's on mother's day. and there's something about familia that is involved in this walk. there was a pressing need because of the language and barriers. and we've created the community health providers. and carers.

and they've been gaining favor all through the states. from florida and texas, san diego and california. and even through organizes like live strong. which is the lance armstrong foundation. >> right. >> and so you're just building all this education around this whole disease. and you have this awareness. it's so important to do the screening. that's what this bingo model is about. >> get up bright and early. mother's day walk there. any final thoughts before we let you go? >> well, come out and join us. it's the mother's day walk. we're surrounded by a lady that passed away on mother's day. it evolved after that. and now we get together.

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how is it going since your election. >> thank you for having me on. it's been going very well. also having in my mind the arching issues of the mission of our office and the community we serve. >> when i go to the courthouse, you look at the names. it seems to overwhelmingly be garcia. but you do have a way to address that in some form. explain howdy verse it is. first let me just give the viewers a sense of a size of our office. we have 525 employees.

180 of whom are prosecutors. 60 are criminalists who work in the crime laboratory? we have 75 investigators that are sort of our police officers. then approximately 250 support staff. so it's a very large operation. we prosecute approximately 40,000 criminal cases a year. almost a third of the prosecutors are asian, latino, or african-american. and that's been something that since i've been the d.a., i've been very focused on. i established a diversity committee and tried to increase the diversity within our office because i think that one of the ways in which we build trust with the community that we serve is to have a prosecutor's office that looks like the community that it serves. >> not that there should be a quo that, but it's important for your office to reflect the community, and that's what it seems like your office is doing. >> it's not a quota.

as much as i like myself i don't want a roomful of people just like me to make important decisions. 50% of our office is women, which is extremely important. >> i want talk about your mission. there's a blemish in your office. before you came in, it might have been a win. they will win the case at all costs? had that changed and what is your mission? >> the mission of the district attorney's office is to pursue justice in a way that's fair and treats everyone with respect.

the other is the process to which we got to the result. was the process fair? were his constitutional rights or her constitutional rights protected? did we treat the witnesses and judges and emp with respect. that's just as important as the final result. fair processes leads to fair results. >> that directed to your attorney. make sure you're fair? you have to be. you're under oath to do that. >> that's absolutely the directive. we drill that into the attorneys in terms of how we train them. how we promote people within the office. how we discipline people within the office. it's very important to go about your job as a professional and to treat everyone with respect. because in the prosecutor's office, we're not just moving cases. we're not just processing cases.

what we're really doing is upholding society values and the way of life. that's equal treatment and due process under the law. and everything that we do, i tell our prosecutors, every interaction you have with the witness or a victim or a defense attorney is an opportunity to move our office and our society towards living out our values, towards equal treatment an due process. or the opposite. they're doing it for respect. >> your thoughts on this? >> we need both. there are certain individuals that overtime become such hardened criminals that we have to protect the public, and the only way we can do that is by incarcerating them? that's really a last resort. that's really not a win for anyone. it's kind of the best we can do in that situation. and certainly in the district attorney's office, a lot of our

resources are focused, most of where the resources are focused are on prosecuting serious violent dangerous criminal ls so everyone else can go about their lives without worrying about being robbed or mugged or attacked. one of the best ways to make a community safe is to prevent crime from happening in the first place. one of the best ways to avoid being a crime victim is to not have the criminal commit a crime. we devote our resources to trying to keep kids involved in beginnings. we have a parent project we offer all over the county. we offer it in english, spanish and vietnamese. it's targeted to kids with parents at risk. to try to give them the tools, to try to support them to raise their children in a way to be productive members of our society. >> he's jeff rosen. he's the chief prosecutor in

santa clara county. there's the number to call for more information and harass jeff rosen if you will. no. he has valuable stions about this. we'll be back and talk more about the paul garcia case and other issues. [ male announcer ] for some reason those five food groups sound a whole lot better when you put them in a taco shell instead of a pyramid. old el paso. when you gotta have mexican. this reduced sodium soup says it may help lower cholesterol, how does it work? you just have to eat it as part of your heart healthy diet. step 1. eat the soup. all those veggies and beans, that's what may help lower your cholesterol and -- well that's easy [ male announcer ] progresso. you gotta taste this soup.

>> we are here with santa clara county's chief prosecutor jeff rosen. you yourself prosecuted the mark garcia case. he was convicted of killing the popular restaurant and bar owner in los gatos. he is still appealing. who what's going on with that case? his family maintained his innocence. what's your take? you prosecuted it. why is it taking so long? >> that was the last case i prosecuted before i became the elected district attorney. i have developed certainly an affinity for his family and

friends through that case. and hopefully paul will be sent in at the end. if not in may. it's been a year and a half since he was convicted by the jury. >> is there a chance he did not do it. >> no. >> that's it? >> that's the truth. i understand why his parents don't want to believe he paid for someone to be murdered, but he did. you have new policies in your office? >> yes, one of the new policies that we substituted in the d.a.'s office is a policy about collateral consequences. before this policy, we ignored any effect that our conviction

would have on someone's immigration status. now our prosecutors are empowered and enabled to consider those consequences in constructing a plea bargain or a negotiated settlement both fair to that individual and protects the community. >> meaning, the family may be negatively impacted? or what kind of things are you looking at? >> the less serious the crime. so for minor offenses, we will consider someone's immigration status and try to construct a negotiated settlement that will not have a negative consequence to them in terms of being deported or denied naturalization. the more serious the criminal offense that someone commits, the less likely we're to consider immigration consequences. with 16 fatalities last year, how do we address that?

>> we have a dozen prosecutors that do nothing but domestic violence cases. we handle it but we don't just punish them by incarcerating them if they're committing violence for the first time. we try to emphasize treatment and services to get them out of this cycle. we sponsor legislation to make it easier to get restraining order against perpetrators and also looking to legislation that will get guns out of the hands of the perpetrators. we had a lot of domestic violence homicides last year. we're working very hard to get that number down. >> but make no mistake. somebody shows up with a mark or scar, you're going after them? >> absolutely. we prosecuted very aggressively. sometimes it's unfortunate that the women that are abused by their husband, you know, may change their story when they testify because they're so

afraid of their husband. >> in about a minute or so. can you explain if realignment has impacted your approach to cases in a different fashion? realignment is the state sending prisoners back to the county level. >> it does for relatively minor offenders, we're emphasizing treatment more so in the past, less incourarceration and more treatment. they're not affected by realignment? we continue to aggressively prosecute them and send them to prison?

we are trying to adopt that approach in the office. >> is that more lenient? >> i don't know if lenient is the right word. it's opening up alternatives to bringing everybody to jail. they can't arrest our way out of a crime. we have to look at ways to prevent people from committing crimes in the first place and to try to rehabilitate them. >> jeff rosen. he's a chief prosecutor. any final thoughts before we wrap it up here? >> it's a pleasure to service the district attorney in the community. it's an incredibly deverse place. it's a place of incredible kplenls. we have technologies here that were developed to change the world. and i want us to have a district attorney's office as excellent and diverse as the community it deserves. >> door is always hope. and now here's what's happening in your comunidad.

♪ and here's our address for next week. drop me an e-mail.

remember to support your bilingual weekly across the area. we'll see you again right back here next week. ♪

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