Speaking of Low Standards . . .

John R. Kronenberg, 61, is a U.S. magistrate in Los Angeles. He also is something of a social critic. He got the two roles mixed up in a decision last week approving the release on bond of an accused child molester. The results, predictably, were grotesque.

The issue before Kronenberg was a request for bail by John Karl Herriot, 33, a former Boy Scout leader and a teacher in a parochial school who was indicted on federal charges of bringing two boys, ages 9 and 13, to the United States from Mexico for immoral purposes.

Joyce Karlin, assistant U.S. attorney, argued that Herriot should be held in custody as a potential danger to the community. Her reasoning seemed quite persuasive. She noted that Herriot, at the time of the alleged federal offenses, was free on bail in connection with previous state charges accusing him of molesting five boys.

Kronenberg responded by wandering off in several directions. “There is a lack of hard evidence . . . that the defendant is a threat to anyone, except perhaps in the sexual field,” he said, making the prosecutor’s point but missing it himself. Kronenberg went on with inscrutable logic, “I don’t think we have any community (sexual) standards here.”

Throwing his net in ever-widening circles, Kronenberg accused The Times of “glorifying one of the leading pornographers in the country” with its recent series on Hugh Hefner. And he whacked both The Times and Times-Mirror Cable Television not only as examples of low community standards on sex but as causes of the community’s sad status.

All in all it was a jolly day for the magistrate, except that U.S. District Judge Robert M. Takasugi spoiled it. Takasugi, considering only the facts in the case, promptly ruled that Herriot had to stay in jail. Obviously we were not the only ones who took as dim a view of the magistrate’s judicial standards as he takes of the community in which he works.