Dangerfields of Court : Federal Magistrates Are Finally Getting Some Respect

The first three federal magistrates in Los Angeles arrived in the U.S. Courthouse 15 years ago, and the reception was less than universally cordial.

Their mission was to help the federal district judges cope with a rising caseload by handling many of the more mundane tasks confronting the court. But a few of the dozen judges at the time had little use for the judicial newcomers, and one in particular saw them as a potential menace.

“I’m going to be watching every move you make,” the late U.S. District Judge Charles H. Carr, notoriously ill-humored, warned one of them. “There are already too many pinko liberals around here. We don’t need any more.”

Low on the Ladder

While most judges took a more appreciative view of their new junior colleagues, the magistrates remained low on the legal status ladder for years.

It was almost a decade before magistrates were invited to lunch once a month with the judges or even given permission to ride in the judges’ elevator in the U.S. Courthouse--the judicial equivalent of getting a key to the executive washroom.

U.S. District Judge Andrew A. Hauk made the decision to give the magistrates more equal treatment while serving as chief federal judge in Los Angeles in the early 1980s.

“Some judges always complained the magistrates weren’t real judges,” Hauk said. “I’ve always felt they deserved the respect and admiration of the court.

“I trusted them to ride in the elevators and eat with us,” Hauk added. “They weren’t going to poison us.”

Today the atmosphere has changed substantially, and judges widely proclaim the talents and legal skills of the magistrates and occasionally even support some for judgeships.

The magistrates, appointed by the district judges to eight-year terms (federal judges have life tenure), have become a more visible force over the years, partly because of their role in handling the arraignment of such celebrated criminal defendants as Daniel Ellsberg in 1971 and John Z. DeLorean in 1982.

One job of the Los Angeles magistrates is to preside over extradition cases, and for that reason Magistrate Volney V. Brown Jr. has drawn more attention in the last two years than some federal judges receive in their careers.

By luck of the draw, Brown, one of the newest magistrates in Los Angeles, was assigned to preside over two of the most publicized extradition hearings in Los Angeles history, involving accused Nazi war criminal Andrija Artukovic and former Mexico City Police Chief Arturo Durazo.

There are other reasons why the magistrates have become better known, even though some of their duties remain obscure, even to many lawyers.

Magistrate John R. Kronenberg, regarded by some lawyers as the most “eccentric” and hot-tempered of the local magistrates, has attracted attention with his actions and occasional outbursts in the courtroom since his original appointment in 1973.

He drew widespread criticism last year by releasing an accused child molester on bail over the protests of government prosecutors on grounds that community standards for sexual misconduct in Los Angeles are “practically non-existent.”

Kronenberg, overruled in that case by U.S. District Judge Robert M. Takasugi, later briefly stepped into the Artukovic case, indicating that he might also order Artukovic released on bond. He was promptly removed from the case by Chief U.S. District Judge Manuel L. Real.

Six in Los Angeles

There are now six full-time U.S. magistrates in Los Angeles and another in Santa Ana assisting the 30 judges in the U.S. Central District of California. In addition, there are nine part-time magistrates in the district’s seven counties.

Their duties include issuing arrest and search warrants in federal prosecutions, the initial arraignment of about 1,200 criminal defendants a year and resolution of preliminary motions in 2,000 civil cases annually.

They also supervise about 1,000 additional cases each year that are automatically assigned to them by the judges--including Social Security payment disputes and petitions by federal prisoners for release or better treatment.

Magistrates are not permitted to preside over felony cases, but can substitute for district judges in civil disputes if all parties agree. Most often, however, lawyers prefer to have judges hear their cases. Last year, the magistrates presided over only 27 out of more than 10,000 civil cases.

The magistrates also function as a sort of federal traffic court. They impose fines for failure to pay parking violations on federal property, handle drunk driving cases on military bases and are responsible for bringing to justice anyone who fails to pay $3 camping fees required by national parks.

Until last week, there were seven magistrates in Los Angeles, but James W. McMahon resigned just before completing his eight-year term, returning to private law practice with the explanation that he could not continue to support his family on the magistrates’ $68,400 salary.

The search for a replacement is expected to last for months. Minimum qualifications are that a candidate have five years as a lawyer and be younger than 70 years old. Usually there are about 100 applicants for an opening, but problems have arisen in recruiting top legal talents.

“I don’t think anyone with a successful practice would apply to be a federal magistrate. It’s a low-level status position in the federal judiciary,” one prominent defense lawyer said. “Quite frankly, the magistrates are acting as law clerks for the judges. The cases assigned to them are cases that law clerks used to handle.”

Despite such views, the magistrates are now regarded by the judges themselves as so helpful that Real, who calls them “very necessary,” has asked Congress for two more.

McMahon, 45, was the magistrate who signed the arrest warrants Oct. 2, 1984, for former FBI Agent Richard W. Miller and Russian emigres Svetlana and Nikolai Ogorodnikov, all subsequently convicted as Soviet spies.

Not a Proud Moment

The FBI arrived at his home about 10 p.m. that night. “There was a very somber, funereal mood,” he recalled. “Sometimes agents come strutting in when they’re about to make an arrest. This wasn’t their proudest moment.”

Most of McMahon’s work, however, was more routine.

“The best part of the job was the variety of exposure to many different areas of federal law,” McMahon said. “The worst part was handling appeals from Social Security cases. Basically it’s a bunch of people saying, ‘My back is hurting.’ ”

Chief U.S. Magistrate Venetta S. Tassopulos, 58, one of the original three in Los Angeles, is the magistrate most often praised as an exceptionally well-qualified candidate for a future judgeship, both because of her knowledge of federal law and her judicial temperament.

Although she has been considered for a judgeship and received strong endorsements from federal judges and the Los Angeles Federal Bar Assn., she has been passed over repeatedly.

Question of Experience

Sources close to the selection process of federal judges for Los Angeles said there is a “general view” that magistrates do not perform a sufficient variety of legal functions to qualify as strong candidates. The recent emphasis has been on picking judges with strong trial experience, either as state judges or lawyers.

Nationally, about 20 out of 400 U.S. magistrates have been elevated to judgeships. No Los Angeles magistrate has ever been selected.

“It’s unfortunate that they haven’t looked harder at Tassopulos,” said one former U.S. prosecutor, now a leading defense lawyer. “She is certainly one of the most capable judicial officers in the federal judiciary. Her selection would encourage other high-quality people to see the magistrate’s job in a different light.”

Tassopulos, who wrote the rules for local magistrates a decade ago, said she has never campaigned for a judgeship, although she knows that others have suggested her. Like several of her colleagues, she said she would like to be a judge, but personally doubts that she will be selected.

“I don’t think anyone sees the magistrate’s position as a step into the district court,” she said. “I would think that would be the logical progression in an ideal world.”

Old System Replaced

Before Congress created the magistrate system in 1968 and it was established locally three years later, the functions now performed by magistrates were given to U.S. commissioners who literally worked on a piece-work basis, receiving $5 for every arrest warrant they signed.

One major reason for the change was the feeling that there was something undignified about the old system, which tended to slow down each year when the commissioners reached their maximum pay of $10,500 a year.

While Tassopulos is the most highly praised of the magistrates by lawyers who practice in the federal courts, the magistrates collectively are viewed as a competent group who perform their roles with skill.

Volney Brown, praised by many lawyers for his courtroom courtesy, is a former U.S. attorney and Justice Department lawyer who compares his magistrate’s job to that of a municipal court judge.

“On criminal duty, they are much alike,” he said. “We issue all search and arrest warrants, explain the defendant’s rights and appoint counsel for them if necessary. We set bail or don’t set bail. More and more, we are also taking pleas of not guilty.”

Increased Responsibility

In the Artukovic case, Brown ultimately ruled that the accused Croatian war criminal be returned to Yugoslavia, where the ailing 83-year-old was convicted and sentenced to death. He also ordered Durazo returned to Mexico to face trial on public corruption charges.

“It was an extra responsibility,” he said. “You’re dealing with very serious issues. The one that caused the most trouble was the competency of Artukovic. In effect, I gave him a competency hearing every morning.”

The other magistrates are Ralph J. Geffen, a former city attorney in Norwalk and past president of the National Council of U.S. Magistrates; James J. Penne, a former lawyer for the U.S. Navy and the Garrett Corp.; Joseph Reichmann, a former defense lawyer and deputy Los Angeles district attorney, and Ronald W. Ross, a Tustin attorney who became Orange County’s full-time magistrate last October.

Reichmann, 54, a marathon runner who starts his workday at 6 a.m., was the magistrate who arraigned DeLorean on cocaine charges. He is the fastest of the magistrates in working his way through the prisoner petitions, Social Security cases and civil discovery disputes that take up more than half of every magistrate’s workload.

Assessment of Duties

“I look at everything as soon as it comes in,” said Reichmann. “There’s no end to the possibilities of what we can do here. We’re here to do whatever the judges want.

“We’re judges, too,” he added. “That’s probably the biggest misconception about us.”

“I think this is a pretty good job,” Reichmann said. “I’d done it all as a prosecutor and a defense attorney. This was an opportunity to see what it’s like in the middle.”

Reichmann, however, said he doesn’t know whether he will seek another term when his current term expires in 1988.

While court statistics on efficiency showed Reichmann had the lowest number of prisoner rights cases and Social Security disputes pending of any magistrate--26 at the end of April--the same figures showed that Kronenberg had the biggest backlog, of 119 cases.

Angry at Reporter

Kronenberg, who while he was defending his child-molester decision accused The Times of contributing to low community standards for publishing a series on Playboy publisher Hugh Hefner, ordered a Times reporter out of his office last week when he was approached for comment about his job.

“Get out! Get out! Get out of here!” he shouted.

Several lawyers criticized Kronenberg’s general temperament and his courtroom unpredictability, while others defended him as a man who is simply quick to blow up.

“He has said to some people in the past that he’s bored with his job,” one lawyer said. “I kind of like him, because he’s pro-defendant and he has an independent streak. Unfortunately, he has sort of a misanthropic view of the world.”

Among the magistrates most active in national judicial affairs is Geffen, currently the only magistrate serving on the executive committee of the 9th Circuit Judicial Council, the local governing authority for the federal courts in the West.

Expanded Role Seen

Geffen believes that magistrates should continue to expand their role, says the appointment of a Los Angeles magistrate to the district court is “long overdue” and predicts that magistrates will eventually be appointed to help the federal appeals courts.

“I think it will happen. It’s way off, but the reason it will happen is that magistrates have been so successful in the district courts,” Geffen said.

“I also think magistrates should try felony criminal cases now,” he added. “That would relieve much of the pressure on the district courts, and the magistrates are fully capable of performing that role.”