Fiesty Lawyer Feeling Like Million in Tiff With Judge

Stephen Yagman is an outspoken Los Angeles civil rights attorney who describes himself “as an unreconstructed 1960s liberal.”

The 42-year-old Yagman is often involved in controversial or unpopular cases in U.S. District Court in Los Angeles. In the case of Eulia Love, a black woman who was shot to death seven years ago by two Los Angeles policemen, Yagman represented the officers.

In the course of his trial work, Yagman has appeared numerous times before before Chief U.S. District Judge Manuel Real, and their encounters--and Yagman’s attacks on Real--have become legend in the federal courthouse, where it is almost unheard of for an attorney to publicly criticize a sitting jurist, much less the chief judge.

Two years ago, the Yagman-Real brouhaha reached a crescendo. It resulted in Real fining Yagman and his small law firm $250,000 for Yagman’s alleged misconduct during a trial before Real.

At issue was Yagman’s courtroom conduct in a $20-million defamation suit that Yagman had brought against two pathologists involved in an autopsy on Ron Settles, a California State University, Long Beach, football player.

After only a few days of trial proceedings in April, 1984, Real threw out the case before Yagman could present his arguments on behalf of a Signal Hill detective and a former police cadet, both of whom, Yagman claimed, had been defamed by the pathologists.

Then Real stunned Yagman with the fine.

Yagman appealed the $250,000 fine, considered unusually large by many in the legal profession, given the size of Yagman’s practice, to the U.S. 9th Circuit Court of Appeals. And he engaged former U.S. Atty. Gen. Ramsey Clark to represent him.

On Wednesday, a unanimous three-judge 9th Circuit overturned the fine.

To be sure, the opinion said, the appellate court was not condoning “any of Yagman’s misbehavior” in the Settles case.

But, said the 49-page opinion written by Judge J. Blaine Anderson, Real never “pointed to specific rules which Yagman violated during the course of the trial. Rather, the court is critical of Yagman’s tactical decisions, lack of preparation, groundless objections and incessant quibbling.”

The fine would have to be reversed, reasoned the appellate judges, because such a large fine “poses a direct threat to the balance between sanctioning improper behavior and chilling vigorous advocacy.”

The 9th Circuit judges left no doubt that the Real-Yagman conflict has left a bad taste in their mouths.

“This case has had an unbecoming quality from its beginning. . . . The fragile appearance of justice has taken a beating,” they wrote.

The appellate judges decided that the decision to fine Yagman should be sent back to the lower court where the matter should be reviewed “as quickly and as painlessly as possible . . . by a new, randomly selected judge.”

Yagman, reached by telephone at his office, indicated that he was happy with the appellate decision. But he still isn’t contrite about his attitude toward Judge Real. “I think he’s a tyrant who ought to be impeached,” he said.

A spokesman for Real said the judge was out of town and could not be reached for comment.