Just in Case: Deputy D.A. Heads Off Contempt Issue

An Orange County prosecutor Friday won a court order prohibiting a judge from holding a contempt of court hearing against him --a proceeding the judge said she never scheduled.

Deputy Dist. Atty. Alphonsus C. (Nick) Novick, who heads the small prosecution team in the South Orange County Municipal Court, asked a Superior Court judge to stop what he thought was a hearing in which he could be found in contempt. Superior Court Judge Francisco Briseno barred any contempt hearing against Novick until a full Superior Court hearing on April 29.

Presiding Municipal Court Judge Pamela L. Isles, against whom the order was issued, said, however, that “no contempt hearing was going to be held.”

The bizarre events this week were the latest of several clashes among prosecutors, judges and defense attorneys that have plagued court operations in Laguna Niguel over the past year.

Isles and Novick locked horns after Novick approached a visiting judge with information about a defendant’s comment in a drunk-driving case. Because Novick had not first notified the defense attorney, the judge could have been disqualified from hearing the case.

Except for denying that she had scheduled a contempt hearing, Isles refused to discuss the case until after the April 29 Superior Court hearing. Novick could not be reached for comment.

“Novick thought that somebody was delaying the trial purposely, to affect the (drunk driving) case,” said Assistant Dist. Atty. Edward J. Merrilees, who heads the prosecutor’s five Municipal Court operations.

Isles was upset, Merrilees said, because Novick risked the disqualification of the judge at a time when the court already was strapped for judges and hard pressed to comply with speedy-trial laws that require dismissal of charges unless trials begin within a specified time limit.

Last year, then-Presiding Judge John Griffin tried a new policy of refusing to grant continuances. With a prosecutor’s office unwilling to plea bargain, that created a backlog in the courts and forced dismissal of several cases. Griffin and Isles clashed over the policy last spring.

Griffin has left the bench, seeking approval of early retirement, and another judge has been on vacation, leaving only Isles and one other judge to handle the load with occasional help from other jurisdictions.