Also Tells of Death Threats to Her : ‘Massive Executions’ in State’s Future, Bird Says

Chief Justice Rose Elizabeth Bird, in a wide-ranging magazine interview, has predicted that large numbers of criminals will be executed in coming years and said that as a focus of anger stirred up by her right-wing critics she has become the target of so many death threats that she has had to move her elderly mother out of her home.

In an interview to be published next month in television station KQED’s San Francisco Focus magazine, Bird, 49, criticized superficial coverage by the media of the court and skittish politicians who have distanced themselves from her.

Additionally, she said that family members of crime victims are being exploited by politicians and that she is the “prime target” of Moral Majority Leader Jerry Falwell and right-wing politicians. The interview, printed in a question-answer format, is the most extensive the chief justice has granted to date.

While her campaign backers have said judges should be removed only if they are incompetent or corrupt, Bird said she has “no quarrel” with the public judging the court’s record.

“If the people know the true facts, they will know that they have a court of which they can be very proud,” she said, “and that an awful lot of good things have been done by this court over the years to ensure a society that’s open and tolerant, and a society that ensures that there’s some protection of the environment, and a society in which they can raise their children with a degree of safety and comfort.”

With a year to go before she must face voters in the November, 1986, election, Bird said she has been subjected to so many “threats against my life” that she is guarded at every engagement.

“There are an awful lot of people out there with an awful lot of anger,” Bird said, “and the right wing has made me a symbol of a lot of that anger. It’s an enormous responsibility to see that and to be the person who carries that.”

She described an instance at a Southern California speaking engagement in which she saw an “individual wearing a large trench coat carrying a valise and some kind of bulky object underneath the trench coat.”

Basis for Thought

“It was 90 degrees inside,” Bird said, “and the fellow was obviously dressed in an odd manner, and I saw him walking up by the side of the wall near the doors, and for one split moment, well, it goes through your mind that this could be possibly the last time that you would speak.

“It makes you conscious of the fact that tomorrow you might not be here.”

Responding to criticism of the court’s record of reversing all but three capital cases it has decided since the death penalty was reinstated in 1977, Bird maintained that the current court has “been much tougher than our predecessors.”

“Our predecessors abated 179 death sentences,” she said, without apparent elaboration.

She evidently was referring to cases decided in 1972 and 1976 when the state Supreme Court struck down death penalty laws, thus emptying Death Row. As of 1967 when California’s last execution took place, the state had put about 500 criminals to death.

But Bird, who has yet to vote to affirm a death sentence, also told the interviewer, “I suspect that in a couple of years, we’ll have massive executions in California. I really think so.

”. . . My personal feelings have no bearing on my constitutional responsibilities. I am entrusted by the people of this state to uphold the Constitution and if I couldn’t accept that trust I wouldn’t be sitting here as chief justice.”

Bird said the effort to unseat her is a “a power play, a method by which to ensure whoever sits here will do the bidding of whoever has the most power, the most economic power or the most clout.”

And she suggested that Deukmejian, who has called for her ouster, is trying to pack the court:

“If you replace somebody, and you put them in, and they are beholden to you, you’ll get a very different kind of justice, a very different kind of court.”

A Political Target

She continued by saying, “the far right out of Virginia, Jerry Falwell and Richard Viguerie and all, have made me their prime target, nationally. And they must see somehow in my defeat a way in which to turn around this society to be the kind of society where their views will be the only views that will be accepted.”

She predicted that Deukmejian will have a third appointment, saying it is “anticipated” that Justice Stanley Mosk will retire.

Mosk, repeating that he is undecided about whether to retire, said: “She may have a crystal ball. Mine is not working.”

Bird appeared to be critical of Democrats who have distanced themselves from her, or not taken positions on the campaign. But she also said she is not seeking political endorsements.

“Politicians are always skittish about . . . fundamental issues,” she said. “Our society teaches us to if you’re going to be a successful politician to say whatever is popular at the moment, and hope nobody ever checks to find out what you’ve said before.

“And I think that as a result you’re not going to find many profiles in courage in the process and you shouldn’t look for it.”

Concern for Families

Turning to victims and their family members, Bird said she feels for victims and witnesses in cases that are overturned because they “have to go through the whole process all over again” in retrials.

But she also said the court has little choice:

“We also have a Constitution and a rule of law that says that before a person can be meted out the ultimate punishment, we have to make sure that the judgment is a fair one--that the trial was fair and without error.”

She criticized the “exploitation” of victims, and family members of crime victims, saying: “A grandmother who is deeply hurt because her grandchild was killed and mutilated has a right to respect for the revulsion she feels.

“Nobody should exploit that.”

She evidently was referring to the grandmother of Amy Sue Seitz, a 2 1/2-year-old girl who was tortured over a four-hour period and murdered. The court reversed the convicted murderer’s death sentence in June. The grandmother, Patti Linebaugh, is a spokeswoman for a group trying to unseat Bird.

“I wish people understood how difficult it is for a judge to read some of this testimony and to ensure that you’re fair. Because on first reading, you are repulsed by the things that are done by one person to another,” Bird said.

Attack on Media

She criticized the media in several instances, citing as one example stories in several publications about a photo of her in a glamorous pose with what was thought to be a hair style change.

“It’s very hard to talk in terms of substance in an age where everybody’s focus is on personality. I mean, if I want to get a front-page story, I could go out and cut my hair,” she said.

“But if I want to talk about the middle class being priced out of the system I can’t get the newspapers to cover it at all. Maybe what I should do is, the next time I want to draw attention to an issue, hold a press conference while my hair is being cut.”

At another point, she said: “I don’t think the people have the facts. And I think it’s very difficult for the press that is interested in controversy and image to handle and deal with an institution that deals in the written word, in the rule of law.”

Fight With Cancer

In addition to speaking about death threats, Bird referred to her bouts with breast cancer.

“It’s an interesting process to, at a relatively early age, face your own mortality. When you do it, it teaches you in an ironic way what life is about.”

She said that among the insights she gained when she contracted cancer was that one should not view life as being a “race--it’s not about winning. I think winning is a self-defeating concept. It’s about learning.

“If you’re constantly doing that (trying to win) the only way in which you feel satisfied is by pushing others down, or by besting someone else. And I think the real beauty is where you meet on an equal plane, another individual and share life--not best them in some way or compare yourself with them.”