RICHLAND CO.—The return of Brad Vaughn to the position of state’s attorney in Richland was made by the Richland County board on Thursday, August 6, and it’s having mixed reviews.
That’s because those of criminal intent who know Vaughn’s capabilities are now concerned for their own hides…and those crime victims who’ve been denied prosecutorial services by the former state’s attorney are thrilled beyond words to have someone so capable in the office.
Vaughn was one of two who had applied for appointment to the position after it was made public that David Hyde, Richland’s three-term state’s attorney (since 2004) would be resigning.
The resignation intention leaked out in July, and would have been facilitated sooner except for the fact that per a newly-enacted rule in the state of Illinois, all sitting judges in the impacted circuit have to sign off on a state’s attorney’s resignation, and it took a little longer to do that for Hyde than anticipated.
Hyde’s resignation, however, was effective Sunday, August 9.
Vaughn was one of two up for consideration per recommendation by the party in charge of the office, the Republicans in Richland; the other was Tania Cullison.
Vaughn was selected and sworn in on the 6th and was in the office on the morning of the 10th, ending 11 years of what many consider public mistrust and confusion over what Hyde was actually doing in office.
Hyde ran unopposed in 2004, 2008 and 2012, after acting as assistant SA from 1995 to 2004. He himself rarely handled prosecutions, opting to leave that up to his assistant, former Lawrence County state’s attorney Todd Reitz, who did a fairly decent job managing the caseload (which, in Richland, is considerable and loaded with drug crimes and crimes of violence). When Hyde was faced with7high-profile issues, however (such as the Witchcraft Murder of 2004 or the Brandon Jenkins murder trial in 2012), he never handled those alone, either, at that point opting to have former Richland County prosecutor (1996-2000) David Rands take the reins. This double-dipped the taxpayer, as Rands is employed by Illinois’ Special Prosecution Unit of the Appellate Prosecutor’s office on a full-time basis, but was residing in Olney during most of Hyde’s tenure; every time Rands was tapped to do something somewhat significant for Hyde – who was elected to do the very job of prosecuting murder trials, especially considering that unlike many downstate prosecutors, he had an assistant – that took away from what the Appellate Prosecutor’s office was able to do statewide.
Hyde is only the latest in an extremely long line of largely do-nothing prosecutors in Richland, which included his predecessor, Lisa Kaye DeSelms (whose claim to fame while in office from 2000-04 was a series of nude hot tub photos and the fact that she hooked up with then-deputy JD Robinson, with whom she had a child while in office); Rands prior to that; and now-defense attorney Chuck Roberts before that.
But before that, there were Vaughns.
Vaughns since 1948
Brad Vaughn (Charles Bradley Vaughn, as his shingle reads), 67, father of six, grandfather of six (with the seventh on the way), was Richland County’s state’s attorney from 1980-84.
Before that, his father, Charles Robert (Bob) Vaughn, was elected to the office of state’s attorney in 1948.
“He handled all but one case during 1948 to 1952,” Vaughn said, “ and then did them all from 1952 to 1964. He didn’t run in 1964. Then they talked him back into running in 1968, and he held the office until 1980 when I succeeded him.”
Vaughn said his dad, an avid American History aficionado, was a Marine who landed on Iwo Jima at the age of 23 and at that time believed he’d never live to see 24.
“But he did,” Vaughn said, “and then he told me never to join the Marines.”
Of course, that’s exactly what Brad Vaughn did, joining up during the Vietnam era in august of 1970, landing in Vietnam in early 1971, and coming back stateside in early 1972, at Camp Lejeune, Jacksonville, North Carolina.
There, he came to be part of a transition project for Marines to learn a trade. There was an opening to work at a radio station, teaching the Marine how one operated, how to transfer news stories of a wire device and make recordings of them, etc.
“The news director there had aspirations to be a rock DJ,” Vaughn said, laughing. “They were having me give local reports in a ‘local voice,’ but they found out I could read aloud, and the program director said ‘Your Midwest accent is just fine for radio,’ and I ended up News Director in a short time. There were people who were so much better than I,” Vaughn said. “I don’t know how I ended up with it, but I did.”
Vaughn said it gave him a deep appreciation for the media and how difficult the news business can be, an appreciation he carries with him to today, even while being an officer of the court and seeing how local media covers (and sometimes doesn’t cover) matters important to the public. Being an American History enthusiast like his father (“He had a wall full of books on the subject,” Vaughn said, “and he dragged us around to different Civil War battlefields from Perryville, Kentucky, to all the big battles in the east, the ones away from the coast”) has sharpened that, as well, since the country’s backbone is made up of the strength of the press and the public’s ability to address grievances with their governing entities…as long as they know what their governing entities are doing via the press.
Wants efficiency
The previous administration under Hyde wasn’t exactly an open book, with files being skinnied down to now not include police reports, something that was once a standard in Richland County but which Hyde ended in about 2008.
Vaughn didn’t have criticism for his predecessor.
He did, however, present his view on things as they regarded how a prosecutor’s office should run.
“I’d had ideas for a long time about how I thought things could be run a little more efficiently,” Vaughn said. “And actually, becoming a state’s attorney again was an option I didn’t necessarily expect to arise, so when it did, I thought that this would be the last opportunity I had to stick my foot in the door and try to make things more efficient.”
By ‘efficient,’ Vaughn explained that he wanted to “emphasize some things and de-emphasize others,” not going into more detail than that.
“There were a lot of changes made (to the office of state’s attorney) when I left,” he said, pointing out that he didn’t run for state’s attorney after those changes were made because there was a considerable conflict in doing so, what with his father still in practice in Olney, as well as his brother, Ray Vaughn (Olney’s mayor) also practicing and occasionally doing public defender work, thus presenting some of the common conflicts seen when there’s a family of attorneys practicing in one small area.
Bob Vaughn died in late 2009; Ray Vaughn, while still active in the law scene, has a more limited practice now…so the conflicts for the most part no longer exist.
Vaughn said one change he will not make to the way the office is being run is Todd Reitz; he wants to keep Reitz on as assistant if Reitz wants to stay. Having worked for the past several years as the public defender in both Richland and Lawrence counties, the latter of which where Reitz was the duly-elected state’s attorney from 200-2004, he is familiar with Reitz’ work and believes it to be quality, especially where drug crimes are concerned.
“Todd was in Lawrence when the meth explosion was at its height,” Vaughn said. “I watched him try a case a month for close to three years with no assistant in Lawrence. He has a great deal of trial experience. He’s very qualified and capable.”
Qualified and capable…and won’t deny services
Vaughn, most people believe, is himself very qualified and capable…not exactly qualities many in Richland held out belief that Hyde possessed, especially after the Brandon Jenkins trial in April and May of 2012 and the years it took to rid the county of the Earp/Trout menace that prompted the situation to begin with (members of that family are still hanging out in Richland, bouncing around from Hamilton County, Illinois, to western Kentucky and back).
Disclosure didn’t ask Vaughn about specific cases such as that, nor about the cases where many taxpaying citizens of Richland have been denied the services of the prosecutor because of “who they were,” a bend Hyde constantly had against certain Richland residents, which has caused costly civil litigation to commence for them, as well as has caused physical harm to some of those residents.
Vaughn, stepping back into the role of prosecutor after so many years of being a defense attorney, puts forth a steady presence and air of common sense that would preclude such denial of services, no matter who the citizen is, or what the crime might be.
And he intends to keep at the office if the citizens will have him.
“I do intend to run for state’s attorney in 2016,” Vaughn said when asked.