Robert Tracci’s first job out of law school was in Congress as counsel to a House committee. He worked in the Justice Department in Washington in 2006, and was a federal prosecutor in Charlottesville two years later. Despite the glittery resume, some Democrats are asking if the Republican candidate for Albemarle commonwealth’s attorney, challenging incumbent Denise Lunsford, has the experience for the job.
“We really don’t know much about him. None of our contacts in law enforcement and the legal community seem to know much about him,” says Patty Haling, executive director of campaigns for the county Dems.
On a recent afternoon, Tracci sat down for an interview to share his views on the office, and to put to rest the accusation made by a liberal blogger that he hit the kill switch on the mic during a 2005 House hearing.
“My whole career has been in public service,” says Tracci. “I have more experience prosecuting cases than the current commonwealth’s attorney did when she was elected,” and more than her predecessor, Jim Camblos, he says. “To me, the federal constitution applies in federal and state courts.”
His first gig out of the University of Illinois law school in 1999 was in Washington. “I’d never worked on Capitol Hill and I was counsel to the House Judiciary Committee,” he says. He added the titles of chief legislative counsel and parliamentarian. “I was there on 9-11, counseling a committee that morning,” he says.
After leaving the Justice Department in D.C., he began work in 2008 as a special assistant U.S. attorney in Charlottesville, and says some of the most difficult cases he worked on were for the magistrate court docket in Charlottesville, handling charges for the National Park Service and U.S. Forest Service that covered a wide array of offenses ranging from drunk driving to drugs to removing ginkgo from a national forest. “I would apply state law or federal law,” he says, because, for example, there’s no federal drunk driving law.
“It’s an important part of the federal docket,” he says. During the one day a month the cases were heard, he could have from 20 to 70 cases. “It was important that every case received the fair, careful and equal treatment it demanded,” he says.
The caseload of a state prosecutor is huge compared to a federal prosecutor, according to Steve Deaton, former Charlottesville commonwealth’s attorney. “In general district court, they handle so many cases every day,” he says. And the federal magistrate court is a first step in hearing a criminal charge. “It’s not like they’re trying cases,” he says.
Deaton says federal experience is valuable, but a commonwealth’s attorney needs experience in state courts because they’re so different from the federal courts. For example, “in federal court a jury does not sentence,” he says. “In state court, they do.” Discovery and rules of evidence are also different, he says.
A commonwealth’s attorney needs trial practice, says Deaton. “I’d want to know if [Tracci] has ever been first chair in a jury trial,” he says. “If you’re not first chair, you’re not the lead prosecutor.”
Tracci says he’s been co-counsel on a drug distribution case in Harrisonburg and on a jury trial for murder, witness tampering, obstruction of justice and drug distribution. He also worked on two cases of child exploitation that were pleaded out on the eve of trial.
He points out that 97 percent of federal indictments produce plea bargains and that in 2014 there were 30 jury trials in the entire Western District of Virginia federal court. He attended the federal prosecutors criminal school—the National Advocacy Center—and was given broad exposure to a number of criminal cases while there, he says.
“Criminal trials in the federal system are not a daily occurrence,” he says. “I had a full range of cases in the criminal system and worked with a full range of law enforcement, including the Jefferson Area Drug Enforcement task force.” He lists handling hundreds of cases including motions for reductions in sentencing, appellate briefs and habeas petitions.
“I think he has a wealth of experience in prosecuting cases that are germane and comparable to what a commonwealth’s attorney does, like fraud, human trafficking and drug trafficking,” says Republican Clara Belle Wheeler.
Upcoming in the Albemarle commonwealth’s attorney’s office is the prosecution of Jesse Matthew for capital murder in the death of Hannah Graham. Tracci has never prosecuted a capital case, but says neither had his predecessors (although Lunsford has defended capital cases). “I don’t think that will be an issue,” he says.
“A prosecutor needs judgment, integrity and fairness,” says Tracci. And although it’s an elected position, it shouldn’t be a political one. A commonwealth’s attorney’s duty “is to seek justice, not merely to convict,” he says.
In his first run for office, Tracci is learning that politics includes allegations such as the kill switch complaint from a 2005 House committee hearing on the Patriot Act. He shows a reporter a YouTube video posted by what he calls a “highly partisan blog” that alleged Tracci silenced a Democratic speaker after the hearing had been adjourned.
“I did not hit a kill switch,” says Tracci, and indeed, it’s not clear from the video that he touched any audio equipment nor that the microphone was silenced for more than a moment. “I think objective people ought to review that for themselves,” he says.
When C-VILLE spoke to Tracci July 10, he declined to comment on the controversial Mark Weiner case, for which Lunsford has come under fire for what many see as a wrongful conviction because of possible exculpatory evidence kept out of the jury trial. “Jury trials and verdicts are entitled to a great degree of deference,” he says. “That deference is predicated on a complete evidentiary record.”
Following Weiner’s unexpected July 14 release from jail, Tracci issued a statement, saying Lunsford’s conduct during key stages of Weiner’s prosecution “has raised substantial questions about the fairness and integrity of criminal proceedings against him.” Her decision to join a defense motion to vacate his conviction after 2 1/2 years of incarceration “does not resolve these questions,” he says. “Rather, it reinforces them.”
Justice is not about the outcome, he says. “It’s a process, and a respect for the process.”
Updated July 15 with Tracci’s comment following Mark Weiner’s release from jail.