Still the Presiding Judge, Won’t Give Up Post--Thomas

Disregarding a resounding vote to oust her as presiding judge, Los Angeles Municipal Judge Maxine F. Thomas asserted Thursday that she will continue to function in the supervisory post because she considered Wednesday night’s recall election unfair and unclear.

“I have been advised by my counsel that I would continue as the presiding judge at this point,” Thomas declared in a telephone interview. “And I am proceeding with responsibilities currently before me.”

Court administrators and fellow jurists, however, reiterated that under the court’s rules, Assistant Presiding Judge George W. Trammell has automatically succeeded Thomas, who had been selected by her fellow judges for a one-year term in January.

“I do not think any member of this court could be so disenchanted that they would deliberately disrupt its efficient operation,” said Judge James F. Nelson, who chaired the hourlong recall session attended by all but nine of the court’s 80 judges.

Trammell, for his part, declared that Thomas “can sit in her office and she can say she is the presiding judge and wave her wand or whatever it is she wants to do in there. But that’s all she is going to do. . . . The vote has been taken . . . and this is totally ridiculous conduct on her part.”

The conflicting statements, however, cast confusion over the Municipal Court and set up a potential courtroom confrontation this morning.

Both Trammell and Thomas indicated Thursday that they may take the same bench in Division 1 at 9 a.m. to call the master calendar of civil cases.

Both also said they were working during the day in the capacity of presiding judge. Trammell, for example, said he had approved two judges’ requests for temporary assignment changes and he had signed standard orders appointing volunteer attorneys as judge pro tems next week. Thomas, meanwhile, said she had not moved from her presiding judge’s office where she was answering “correspondence and other concerns.”

Secretaries for both judges, who had thus far avoided speaking to each other, answered their phones “presiding judge’s office” and various courthouse bulletin boards gave conflicting signals. At one end of the fifth-floor hallway, a bulletin board stated that Trammell was presiding judge, while at the other end a similar directory identified Thomas as the court’s chief.

Thomas, a candidate for election to a Superior Court post, was the subject of the ouster vote as a result of a petition signed by 42 of the court’s 80 judges demanding Wednesday’s recall hearing. Although the petition did not cite specific reasons for a recall, several judges have criticized Thomas in recent weeks for allegedly neglecting her duties in order to campaign for office and for allegedly rewarding her friends with choice bench assignments.

Thomas said Thursday that she considered the 57-13 vote for her removal invalid because “it was taken without giving me any specific concerns or an opportunity to respond.”

Furthermore, her co-counsel Godfrey Isaac declared, the wording of the ballot--”Shall the presiding judge be removed from office?”--was “just basically sloppy language . . . and is not enough to have actually removed her.”

“It does not say when, it does not say where or under what circumstances,” Isaac continued.

Thomas said she will likely announce early next week whether she will file a lawsuit to try to have her colleagues’ vote invalidated in court. Such action could take several weeks to resolve, Isaac said.

Regardless of Thomas’ statements, court officials said, Trammell is definitely in charge.

“The rules of the court are clear. There was an election, and the presiding judge is George Trammell,” said Edward M. Kritzman, the Municipal Court’s administrator.

“He’s the one I say ‘aye, aye’ to,” Nelson said. As for Isaac’s contentions, Nelson added, “he has to have something to say, and it’s a nice technicality. But it does nothing to destroy the effectiveness of the majority’s clear call.”

Other judges questioned whether a continued battle would serve to reduce the court’s effectiveness and further tarnish its public image.

“I think the court has been preoccupied with this issue for several weeks, if not months, and it’s time to get it behind us and go back to business as usual,” Judge Candace D. Cooper said. “(Thomas) has lost her consensus and her base of support. The judges simply no longer wish her to continue as our leader.”