Mike Ramos, ex-San Bernardino County DA, writes new chapter as author (2024)

By David Downey | Contributing Writer

On many weekday mornings, one can find Mike Ramos writing in pencil on a notepad at one of several Redlands coffee shops.

Ramos, 66, is a retired prosecutor who served as San Bernardino County’s district attorney from 2002 to 2018.

Now he’s writing crime novels.

“It’s a new chapter in my world,” he said.

Ramos published his second novel, the 199-page paperback “Murders on Death Row,” in March.

It’s a sequel to his “Silence in the Silos.”

He’s busy writing the final installment of a trilogy.

That third novel doesn’t yet have a title, but it will involve a serial killer on the loose in London, Paris and Italy, and have a San Bernardino County connection, Ramos said.

He recently changed part of the story. Ramos did so, he said, after losing sleep “the other night” over the plight of a fictional character.

“I just couldn’t write down, even in pencil, that the character I developed, the victim, who happened to be in Lake Arrowhead, that she was going to die,” Ramos said Wednesday, May 15. “So she is going to live.”

For his stories, Ramos draws on a wealth of criminal justice experience that includes trying 125 cases, including about 30 murder trials. He is able to discuss in vivid detail crimes, crime scenes, detective work, types of evidence, suspect interviews, courtroom descriptions and the camaraderie enjoyed by investigators.

At the same time, he said, he can’t help but think about real-life victims of real-life crimes when he writes.

Ramos has long had a passion for bringing justice to victims and their families. He dedicated “Murders on Death Row” to them.

Book deals with justice for murderers

The book’s fictitious storyline involves a series of suspicious deaths of San Quentin death row inmates.

The main characters are prosecutor Anthony Garcia, a reflection of the author, Ramos said, and Detective Dean Liter, a reflection of Laren Leichliter, a San Bernardino County Sheriff’s Department detective who retired in 2017.

They and others travel to San Francisco, San Quentin, Miami and Florence, Italy, to solve the mystery of how the inmates died.

Along the way, some in the story wonder what the fuss is all about and cheer that “someone is doing what the State won’t do.”

The book capitalizes on the tension between the desire to deliver justice for victims of brutal killings and the duty to solve all murders, even when the victims are people on death row.

At one point, Garcia tells fellow prosecutors he “took an oath of office to seek justice, which means the truth.”

“He sticks to his ethics,” Ramos said of Garcia. “They are murder victims, too.”

Death penalty debate and talk of closing San Quentin’s death row are prominent themes.

“Most people who believe or disbelieve in the death penalty, they aren’t going to change their minds,” Ramos said.

But he hopes the book will spur readers to think about both sides of the issue.

Fentanyl is also a prominent theme.

“It’s a hot topic, so I wanted to put it into this book to open people’s eyes about how horrible it is — even if it is killing death row inmates,” Ramos said.

Some characters rooted in reality

Ramos, in real life, co-chaired the successful 2016 campaign to pass Proposition 66, which sought to preserve and reform California’s death penalty policy while speeding up appeals and mandating inmates’ work to pay restitution to victims’ families.

Ramos said he favors using the death penalty as punishment for the “worst of the worst” — serial killers, murderers who torture victims and killers of peace officers in the line of duty.

In response to passage of Prop. 66, the California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation is transferring death row inmates to 19 prisons across the state, including the California Institution for Men in Chino.

The latter move prompted an outcry this month from Chino and San Bernardino County officials, and from the mother of an 11-year-old boy who was murdered by escapee Kevin Cooper in 1983.

As for “Murders on Death Row,” it includes flashbacks to Garcia’s high school years. While the storyline is fictitious, descriptions of Garcia’s youth resemble the former district attorney as a young man, including his days carrying the football for Redlands High School — and even his jersey number: 87.

“Anthony Garcia is really about me,” Ramos said.

Detective Liter, the character built on the personality of real-life former detective Leichliter, often wears Seattle Seahawks football-team ties and sweaters — to the aversion of Los Angeles Rams fan Garcia.

That is an accurate portrayal, said Leichliter, the former president of the Sheriff’s Employees’ Benefit Association, which represents San Bernardino County law enforcement officers.

“I am an avid Seahawks fan,” he said.

In the book, the two characters discuss the progress of criminal investigations on the golf course.

In real life, Leichliter said, he and Ramos often played a round of golf together.

“We still do, once a week,” Leichliter said.

Ramos is latest attorney-turned-author

Kathy Feeley, history professor and associate dean of the College of Arts and Sciences at the University of Redlands, said she’s not surprised that the former district attorney became an author.

Feeley said there is a “long history” of attorneys pivoting to writing fiction novels, some early and some late in their careers. She rattled off names of prominent examples, such as John Grisham, Linda Fairstein, Scott Turow and Lisa Scottoline.

Former attorneys have an advantage writing about the legal system, she said, when compared to writers who lack intimate knowledge of the system.

Feeley said it’s not unusual for an author to put one’s self in a story, in a sort of “semibiographical” work of fiction “that carries some aspect of you and your experiences.”

Feeley applauded Ramos’ inclusion of a discussion of the death penalty and fentanyl.

“A lot of people think of fiction as just an escape and fun,” she said.

But she said great works of fiction often promote understanding of the complexities of “pressing issues of the day.”

Ramos also promotes understanding of the Inland Empire with descriptions of Redlands and neighboring communities. He mentions, for example, the region’s aromatic orange blossoms and colorful rose bushes.

“I was born and raised here,” Ramos said. “I love this community. … I want people to really get a feel for this place.”

Ramos also teaches a basic course on criminal justice at UC Riverside.

He isn’t sure what he will do next, but is mulling the idea of writing a college textbook on law and justice. Or, he may tackle another work of fiction.

“I love writing the crime novel,” he said.

In any event, Ramos said, he won’t write a fourth book with the same main characters.

“I think Anthony Garcia may need a break.”

BOOK SIGNING

What: Michael Ramos is set sign books to promote his new novel, “Murders on Death Row.”

Where: Escape Craft Brewery, 440 Oriental Ave., Redlands

When: Saturday, June 1, 2 p.m. to 4 p.m.

Social media:Follow Michael Ramos on X at@michaelramos

Website:https://murdersondeathrow.com/