Judge Suspends Fines on Son’s 72 Parking Tickets

A Beverly Hills Municipal judge suspended fines on at least 72 tickets issued to his own automobile after the judge’s son had illegally parked the car near Beverly Hills High School, The Times has learned.

The 1984 Honda registered to Judge Charles D. Boags, 56, was cited by police for the parking infractions between Sept. 18, 1985, and Feb. 20 of this year, according to parking tickets on file at the Beverly Hills Courthouse.

On 13 occasions, the car, driven to the school by 17-year-old Martin R. Boags, was ticketed twice in one day. Once, last Nov. 18, the youth got three tickets in one day.

The judge recorded guilty pleas on all the citations, records show, but imposed no fines on himself or his son, even though the maximum bill could have reached $1,206.

Police issued an additional 15 parking tickets to Boags’ car, the last on March 5, according to computer records at the courthouse. However, The Times could not locate those original citations in courthouse files. Fines of $227 on those tickets were also suspended, the computer records state.

During its investigation, The Times learned that the Los Angeles County district attorney’s office is trying to determine if Boags violated any criminal statutes by suspending the fines. A spokesman for the office’s Special Investigations Division confirmed Tuesday that Boags is the subject of an ongoing probe.

Even if Boags did not break the law, he appears to have violated at least one section of the California Code of Judicial Conduct, which specifically bars judges from presiding over matters in which they have a financial interest.

According to court records, Boags disposed of the tickets on 11 occasions over a five-month period beginning last November. Last Dec. 20, for example, the judge handled 20 tickets in a single sitting.

In addition, docket sheets attached to the 72 citations inspected by The Times indicate that the tickets were not processed through normal channels. Instead of presenting the tickets to a courthouse clerk, Martin Boags gave them directly to his father.

In an interview Tuesday, Boags acknowledged that he had suspended the fines on all the tickets issued to the car that his son drives to Beverly Hills High School. Boags said he handled the dispositions in his chambers, where his son gave him the tickets.

Boags said he believed that his son had been parking legally because he had arranged for an acquaintance living near the school to lend the youth a special permit that allows guests of residents to park in restricted sections of neighborhood streets.

However, all of the tickets issued to Boags’ car were for offenses other than parking in a permit-restricted area.

“I didn’t know that,” the judge told The Times on Tuesday. “I didn’t know that he was not parking where he was supposed to be parking.”

Records show that the judge’s car was cited 47 times for parking beyond a posted two-hour limit, 15 times for parking in a no-parking zone, six times for meter violations, three times for parking in an area restricted to school officials and once for parking too close to a fire hydrant.

Boags did not say why his son did not park on the high school campus. A limited number of permits for on-campus parking are available for a fee of $240 a year, according to school officials. When his son brought the tickets to his chambers, Boags said, “Usually . . . I had something else on my mind. I let the stuff slip. . . .

“I may not have been on top of the thing. Hindsight is fantastic. If I had to do it all over again, it would have been done differently,” the judge said.

”. . . (If) I thought that anybody else around me would have done any different, that he is getting special treatment, it would never have happened. I’m not going to give my son any special treatment, any better treatment than anyone else.”

Boags said he did not consider that ruling on tickets in which he had a financial stake might involve a conflict of interest.

“To tell you the truth, at the time I didn’t think about that,” the judge said. “I’m interested in basically raising my son to be a good person, trying to do a good job, I didn’t think. . . .”

The district attorney’s investigation of the parking tickets is focusing on whether Boags was aided by anyone else in a conspiracy to obstruct justice, said Deputy Dist. Atty. Richard Healey.

“We are seeking to determine whether there was some assistance lent to the judge in suspending the fines on these tickets, or whether it is something he did on his own,” Healey said.

Judges Excluded

“If the judge was doing this on his own, I’m not aware presently of any section of the criminal law that was violated.” Portions of the state conflict-of-interest law that might apply to the facts in the Boags case specifically exclude judges, Healey said.

If the district attorney’s office concludes that Boags did not commit a criminal act, the office is likely to refer the matter to the state Commission on Judicial Performance, according to several legal experts.

The Commission on Judicial Performance, established by the state Constitution, is empowered to investigate complaints against judges and recommend to the state Supreme Court--which makes the ultimate decision--censure, removal or forced retirement.

The nine-member commission can also take the less serious step of privately admonishing a judge, said Jack E. Frankel, the panel’s director and chief counsel.

The commission is guided by constitutional language that allows action against a judge for willful misconduct in office or conduct prejudicial to the administration of justice that “brings the judicial office into disrepute.” It also relies on the Code of Judicial Ethics, Frankel said.

Canon 3 of the code requires a judge to perform his duties “impartially and diligently.” It specifically requires a judge to disqualify himself from a case when “he has a personal bias or prejudice concerning a party, or personal knowledge of disputed evidentiary facts concerning the proceeding.”

The canon also requires disqualification when a judge “. . . knows that he, individually or a fiduciary, or his spouse or minor child residing in his household, has a financial interest in the subject matter in controversy. . . .”

Another section of the same canon says a judge should not hear a case in which a close relative is a party to the proceeding.

Boags was appointed to the bench in 1979 by former Gov. Edmund G. Brown Jr. after serving for more than 20 years in the office of the Los Angeles County public defender. He was elected to a six-year term in 1980, and is running unopposed for reelection in the June primary.

He and his wife, from whom he is divorced, have three children. Boags and his son, who is to graduate from Beverly Hills High School in June, live in the Mt. Washington area of Los Angeles. Boags said his son has been attending Beverly Hills schools since the seventh grade with the permission of the district.

“I’ve been around a long time,” the judge said. “I believe I have an excellent reputation, and I’ve jealously guarded it. My life has been dedicated to work and I’ve done the best damn job I can do.”

Alma Cook assisted in the research for this story.