Not six months ago, the L.A. County supervisors’ Commission on Jail Violence concluded that Sheriff Lee Baca would have been fired for incompetence if he’d been employed in the private sector.

For everything from favoring campaign contributors and “Friends of the Sheriff” to allegations of deputy cruelty and inhumane conditions in the jails, from deputies forming their own gangs and factions (only to attack each other) to heroin burritos and FBI-smuggled cellphones (for real-time corroboration from jailed informants), one might be tempted to believe Baca might finally be held accountable for his misdeeds.

The bad news is that a sheriff, an elected official, isn’t subject to the authority of a Board of Supervisors, so Baca can’t be fired for the negligence, mismanagement, or lack of accountability and transparency cited in the Commission’s findings. But the good news is, he probably won’t be running unopposed in the next election, as he had in 2010. Read more