13 Reagan Appointees : ‘Excellence’ Hallmark of New Judges

They are known as the “Reagan judges,” a new conservative majority in the Federal Courthouse in Los Angeles with a growing reputation for judicial excellence.

President Reagan has appointed 13 new judges to the District Court here in the last four years, more than any other President.

While one judge has moved up to the U.S. 9th Circuit Court of Appeals, the 12 who remain outnumber all other active trial judges on the local federal bench. And more new judges are on the way.

Reagan’s judges have already handled some of the major cases in the federal courts, from the W. Patrick Moriarty public corruption scandal to the pending General Dynamics defense industry fraud trial.

They have lived up to a reputation for toughness in sentencing, but they have also expanded their original image. The legal community of Los Angeles no longer sees them merely as tough, but some of the most experienced and qualified federal judges ever selected.

“Their impact is that we have the finest District Court in the country,” said Max Gillam, a prominent Los Angeles lawyer and Democrat. “They are exceptionally bright as a group. One thread that runs through them is quality.”

The new judges are all Republicans, and there are no judicial activists among them. They generally share the conservative views that Reagan appointees are expected to share.

The newcomers include a former Green Beret generally viewed as the toughest new judge on the court. Another new judge is a former carnival worker. The newest selection, not yet officially announced, is an Australian immigrant who was once an Olympic champion swimmer.

While they come from widely differing backgrounds, as a group the judges are known best for their high degree of previous judicial experience.

Impressive Experience

“What impresses me is the amount of experience they’ve compiled as state trial judges,” said Gerald F. Uelmen, a leading liberal law professor at Loyola Law School.

“Most have been already recognized as outstanding Superior Court judges,” added Donald C. Smaltz, president of the Los Angeles Federal Bar Assn. “And those who weren’t judges have been very well-qualified federal practitioners. I think they have been excellent picks.”

But the view is not entirely positive.

One liberal complaint is that most of the appointees are white male judges. Of the 13 appointees, three have been women. But only recently was the first Latino judge named, and there still are no blacks.

“I’m surprised they’ve gotten away with it to the extent they have,” Uelmen commented. “They’ve been able to pooh-pooh the issue so far by saying they just can’t find good minority candidates.”

“My main impression is that they aren’t all a bunch of geniuses,” one criminal defense lawyer added, speaking anonymously because of his frequent appearances before many of the new judges. “From what I’ve seen so far, they are unusually predisposed to prejudge a case.”

Nationally, Reagan has already named about 30% of the 575 active federal trial judges in the nation and is expected to increase that to about 50% by the end of his second term in office, exceeding President Jimmy Carter’s previous record number of judicial appointments.

While they are Reagan’s official appointees, the new Los Angeles judges are actually the selections of two past and present California Republican U.S. senators, who relied on screening committees of lawyers and judges to find their candidates.

The first four judges were chosen by Sen. S. I. Hayakawa, but most have been named by Sen. Pete Wilson, who set up what his advisers regard as the nation’s most elaborate judicial selection process to recommend and screen his final selections.

Wilson has two secret committees of judges and lawyers in each of the four separate federal jurisdictions of California. One committee in each district is a merit review group, and the other makes sure that the new judges meet Wilson’s conservative political goals.

‘Look for Judicial Conservative’

“We look for people with a judicial conservative philosophy,” said San Diego attorney John G. Davies, Wilson’s former law partner who supervises the work of the secret selection committees. “But we have also focused on very strong trial experience. We want state judges or top trial lawyers with a reputation for integrity and legal ability.”

Because of Wilson’s key role in selecting the Reagan appointees, he is given most of the credit for the highly praised judges.

“The exceptionally high quality of these appointments is a tribute to Sen. Wilson, who screened, selected and submitted the names to President Reagan,” said U. S. Atty. Robert C. Bonner, also a Reagan appointee who was actually selected by Wilson.

In their first years, the judges themselves had begun to establish their own reputations. Individually, there are some dramatic differences both in their courtroom style and their backgrounds.

Judge Rafeedie Typical

Judge Edward Rafeedie, one of the early Hayakawa selections in 1982, is one of the veteran Reagan appointees with a background and a track record in the courtroom that typifies the unusual mixture of differences and similarities they share.

Rafeedie’s parents were Lebanese immigrants, and he began his first career at 12 as the operator of a carnival game on the Ocean Park Pier in Santa Monica. Rafeedie later traveled the nation’s carnival circuit with an electric racehorse game called Derby. He calls himself “the only carny to ever get to the federal courts.”

But Rafeedie, 57, also has the judicial background of most Reagan judges. He was a top trial lawyer for a decade, then a Municipal Court judge for two years, and finally a Superior Court judge for another 11 years. He is one of the most efficient and least reversed judges in the Federal Courthouse, and like most Reagan judges, he has demonstrated he can be both fair and tough.

One of Rafeedie’s most publicized sentences was a 10-year prison term imposed on James Marty Stafford, the central figure of a high-profile public corruption case in the City of Industry, a sentence that fell into the tough category for white-collar crime.

“I thought it was important for the public to see that white-collar criminals should be treated no differently than a fellow who walks into a bank,” Rafeedie explained recently. “There’s a perception anyway that white-collar offenders always get off. I think that needs to be corrected.”

Judge Ideman ‘Toughest’

The toughest of the Reagan judges is Judge James M. Ideman, 54, and he is another of the new federal judges with an unusual background. Ideman is a former Green Beret who was graduated from The Citadel in 1953 and spent 10 years in the 82nd Airborne Division with the U. S. Army Special forces, finally retiring from the military as a full colonel.

Over the next 20 years, however, Ideman also acquired the more typical judicial experiences of the other Reagan judges. He was a Los Angeles deputy district attorney for 15 years, building a reputation as a top prosecutor. He was the only former state court judge who was initially elected as a Superior Court judge, and he spent five years there before his 1984 appointment to the federal court.

As a Superior Court judge, Ideman imposed the death penalty on one of the defendants in the Bob’s Big Boy murder case. As a new federal judge, he established a reputation as the toughest of the Reagan judges by sentencing a bank robber to 100 years in prison, the heaviest bank robbery sentence any federal prosecutor could recall.

“If you offend, then you pay the penalty,” Ideman said. “When convicted, you should pay the price. I basically believe in punishment for crime.”

‘Extremely Well-Qualified’

All the Reagan appointees were rated as “qualified” or better by the American Bar Assn., but only one in the group received the ABA’s top ranking of “extremely well-qualified.” He is Judge Harry L. Hupp, a pipe-smoking, soft-spoken former school board member from the San Gabriel Valley.

Hupp, 56, who spent 12 years as a Superior Court judge, said he thought the only difference between the Reagan appointees and most of the other federal judges in the Federal Courthouse was the previous judicial experience of the Reagan judges.

“Maybe you can say that people appointed by Reagan tend less to be judicial activists, but you don’t have that posed too often as a trial judge,” Hupp said. “We’re all judges here. We don’t run our courtrooms any differently. A judge is a judge. The rules of evidence are the same for all of us.”

Judge William J. Rea, 65, an appointee with 15 years’ experience as a Superior Court judge, is another Wilson selection with a generally moderate reputation for his sentences. He is the oldest of the Reagan appointees, picked because of his reputation for integrity despite the view of top Wilson aides that new appointees should ideally be between 45 and 55 years old.

Appointed in 1984

Rea, a candidate during the Hayakawa years, was named in 1984 by Wilson after Rea had decided that he had probably been passed over because of his age.

A courtly, white-haired judge, Rea demonstrated his own toughness in the recent sentencing of public corruption figure W. Patrick Moriarty, imposing a seven-year prison term despite Moriarty’s service as a government informant in a continuing probe of political bribe-taking.

“We are in an age of declining trust in public officials,” Rea told the shaken Moriarty. “There are legitimate avenues for affecting legislation besides bribery. You have committed a crime for which you must be punished.”

While it is widely rumored that Reagan judicial candidates are subjected to Justice Department political “litmus tests” on key political issues, Rea, like the other 12 Reagan appointees, told The Times he was never pressured to discuss how he would judge such issues as abortion and school prayer if named to the District Courts.

Rea added, however, that he talked in Washington to a Justice Department lawyer, Jonathan Rose, when he was first under consideration for one of the federal judgeships three years earlier.

‘Asked a Lot of Questions’

“He asked me a lot of questions in general,” Rea said. “How active would I be? Would I try to legislate? I told him, ‘No, I’m not a trailblazer. I’m the kind of judge who isn’t interested in trying to be a legislator.’

“I didn’t feel I was being given a litmus test,” Rea continued. “I think he asked me what my views were on gun control and if I was opposed to the death penalty. I told him I didn’t have strong feelings one way or another about gun control. I told him I was not opposed to the death penalty.”

The first of the Reagan appointees to the trial bench in 1982 was Judge Cynthia Holcomb Hall, a former federal tax judge. Two years later, Hall, 57, was named to the U.S. 9th Circuit Court of Appeals.

She is also one of two Reagan judges on Wilson’s eight-member secret merit screening committee helping select the newer nominees.

The eight other Reagan appointees to District Court judgeships are:

- Judge Richard A. Gadbois Jr., 54, appointed in 1982 after 10 years as a Superior Court judge. His most publicized sentence was a 35-year prison term imposed on Los Angeles drug dealer Thomas (Tootie) Reese.

‘I’m a Judicial Conservative’

“I’m a judicial conservative in that I don’t think the courts are the answer to all of society’s problems,” Gadbois said.

- Judge Pamela Ann Rymer, 45, a 1983 appointee who had been an anti-trust lawyer. Rymer, who has a low reversal rate of only 5% in 57 cases that have been appealed, is already viewed as one of the best judges in the Federal Courthouse, and was recently among the top contenders to fill a new opening on the state Supreme Court.

She is also known as being among those imposing the toughest sentences in the building, imposing a 90-year sentence on former California Highway Patrolman George Michael Gwaltney, convicted of rape and murder in a 1984 federal civil rights prosecution. She is one of the hardest workers in the Federal Courthouse, usually arriving by 6:30 a.m.

“The really important thing is for judges to be appointed who are fair and effective,” Rymer said. “The common trait of the recent appointees is that they are very hard workers and excellent judges.”

Orange County Prosecutor

- Judge Alicemarie H. Stotler, 43, one of Wilson’s first picks in 1984, a former Orange County prosecutor and Superior Court judge. Another one who metes out tough sentences, Stotler once sentenced a man to 44 years in prison for his part in the gang rape of a 14-year-old deaf girl. She hopes to be the first federal trial judge to sit in Santa Ana when the District Court finally opens an Orange County branch.

Commenting on the lack of minorities among the Reagan judges, Stotler said: “We need judges of any shape, size or color who can do the job.”

- Judge William D. Keller, 51, a former U.S. attorney named in late 1984. He established an early reputation as a conservative judge on First Amendment issues by imposing a gag order on lawyers in a civil rights lawsuit involving racial friction on the Signal Hill police force. While there was only minimal press interest in the case, Keller’s position was that it was potentially inflammatory to prospective jurors. He was later reversed by the 9th Circuit.

“As U.S. attorney, I never talked about a criminal case. I don’t recall a press conference,” Keller said. “I read the paper every morning, too, and I want to know what’s going on. But when appropriate, I’ll issue a gag order. I want everybody to get tried in court, not in the press.”

Was Beverly Hills Attorney

Keller had been a private attorney in Beverly Hills. He is now one of the Reagan judges on the Wilson merit selection committee that recommends other new judges.

- Ferdinand Fernandez, 48, the first of four new judges named in 1985 and the only Latino appointee. Fernandez is a former Superior Court judge in San Bernardino who is now presiding over the General Dynamics defense industry fraud case involving former NASA Administrator James Beggs.

He is also among the most recent Wilson selections who have been summoned to Washington for interviews at the Justice Department before their official appointments, but says he was not “grilled” about his views on any particular political subjects.

“We talked about philosophy--real philosophers,” said Fernandez. “These people are very esoteric. They talk about ‘What is law?’ and things like that. From what I hear, the litmus-type questions are really kind of irrelevant.”

- Stephen V. Wilson, 44, a former top federal prosecutor who later established himself as one of the best white-collar criminal lawyers in Los Angeles. One of his triumphs as a defense lawyer came in the case of Bernard Whitney, convicted in one of the most spectacular land-fraud cases in California history. Wilson won a jail sentence of four months in a halfway house for his client.

Judge Must ‘Have Backbone’

Wilson, who last week sentenced a bank robber to 30 years in his first criminal case, said he believes a judge must “have the backbone” to impose serious sentences in appropriate cases. He also said his early dreams focused on an operatic career.

“I’m most inspired when I hear a brilliant concert,” Wilson said. “That was the one field where being good wasn’t enough. You had to be the best. In music, you have to be the best.”

- J. Spencer Letts, 51, sworn into office Jan. 13 as the most business-oriented of the new Reagan appointees. Letts is a Harvard Law School graduate who was general counsel for Teledyne Corp. and chairman of Semtech Corp, a Newbury Park semiconductor manufacturer. As an attorney he was also associated with the Los Angeles law firm of Latham & Watkins.

“A lot of federal law is business law,” Letts said. “We have the least certain laws of any country in the world. I’d like to see a little more certainty in the federal business laws.”

As Letts began the first few weeks of his new job, there was speculation that he might become one of the least typical of the Reagan judges. Colleagues viewed him as a fiscal conservative who might establish himself as a liberal in some areas.

- Dickran Tevrizian Jr., 45, another new judge still to take his formal oath of office. Tevrizian is one of the majority of Reagan appointees with previous experience as a Municipal and Superior Court judge. His parents were Armenian immigrants, and he is a strong political supporter of Gov. George Deukmejian, calling him “one of my soul brothers.”

“I’m somewhere between moderate and conservative,” Tevrizian said. “My job is to follow the law and not make the law. There really shouldn’t be a soft judge or a hard judge. You want a consistent judge.”

Awaiting Security Checks

The latest appointee, still to be officially named by Wilson, is now going through the FBI security checks that are part of the process of picking a new federal judge.

He is the former Australian swimmer, John G. Davies, who has the same name as Wilson’s former law partner and supervisor of the secret selection process. Now a 56-year-old Beverly Hills trial lawyer, this Davies won a gold medal in the 200-meter breaststroke in the 1952 Olympics before leaving Australia and becoming a naturalized U.S. citizen in 1960.

After Davies, Wilson has at least one more new judge to pick in July. His top aides, disagreeing with the view that they had overlooked minority candidates, said they still hope to find a qualified black who shares Wilson’s conservative views.

“We have sought out blacks, Hispanics and Asians, and they can’t make the financial sacrifice,” said Ira Goldman, Wilson’s top Washington staff member on judicial matters. “It’s unfortunate and I think it will change.”

But one leading black lawyer said he doubts if any minority candidates would ever be found who could match the Wilson requirements.

“Let me put it this way,” he said. “It is very difficult for them to recruit minority candidates if they have two basic requirements--that they be Republicans and that they think like Sen. Wilson.”

Carter Appointed 15

Despite the record number of new Reagan appointees, most lawyers and judges said they would have less long-term impact on the District Court than President Carter’s record number of 15 appointees to the U.S. 9th Circuit Court of Appeals.

There is a dispute as to whether they will have any impact at all in the federal courts of Los Angeles as they go about their judicial routines.

“I think it will have an impact,” Wilson predicted. “These will be people who will be strong law enforcement judges. I do not think they will be accused of being soft on crime.”

But one who believes that toughness on crime does not distinguish the Reagan judges from most of their colleagues is Chief U.S. District Judge Manuel L. Real, a Democrat who has been a tough federal judge for the last 20 years.

“I think they’re good, but I don’t think they will impact the court,” said Real. “I think there will be different types of decisions made. You have an Administration with a philosophy and that’s a different philosophy than Mr. Carter or Mr. (President Gerald R.) Ford. But I don’t think there will be much real change in how the federal courts are run.”