Trutanich's Schoolyard Tactics Costs City Millions in Trial Losses

As the Los Angeles City Attorney continues to blow his own trumpet about his legal skills, he has increasingly being pimping his "Porcupine Defense" as a brilliant, innovative legal strategy that has "saved the City of Los Angeles millions of dollars." It's is part of Carmen Trutanich's strategy to promote himself as a viable candidate to take over from Steve Cooley as LA's next District Attorney.

Typically, Trutanich confines his self-aggrandizing remarks to small groups of sycophantic supporters who are unable and disinclined to either challenge or question the man they see as the thug or bully who will take on the bad guys. The Porcupine Defense, like the "Misdemeanor Million Dollar Bail"is touted as one of the brilliant legal strategies that defeats those who dare to sue the City. But as this mini-documentary shows, the "Porcupine Defense" is anything but brilliant and certainly not a successful strategy.



Apart from the obvious humor in that reporter Brad Nolan has no idea what the City Attorney actually does (he is not the only one), he also doesn't know the City Attorney's name.

You can almost see Nolan glazing over as he is bombarded with a stream of often unintelligible self-promoting baseless claims. His chuckle at the explanation offered as to the Porcupine Defense, belies the relief that most have when they have been the hapless victim of Trutanich's barrage of legal mumbo-jumbo and BS; at last, something to laugh at.

However, the Porcupine Defense is no great legal strategy. It exists nowhere in the volumes of legal learning in a law school library. It is not tested in the Bar Exam, and as Trutanich failed to tell Nolan, it is based on a childhood schoolyard prank - "You may eat me, but I won't taste good going down."

This is the brilliant legal strategy that the City Attorney uses. A catch-phrase, gimmick, or campaign stunt that has so far cost the City of Los Angeles millions and millions of dollars in trial loses. Small wonder that the City Council will now hire private attorneys to defend the City.

zz