Judges to Weigh Case for Memberships

San Diego judges, accustomed to holding other peoples’ conduct up to the highest standards, will be busy in coming weeks with the hard business of self-appraisal.

The self-scrutiny will stem from a vote Monday by the California Judges Assn. holding that it is unethical for judges to belong to organizations that discriminate against minorities or women.

“It’s kind of up to the individual judge to look at his organizations and the case law and see if they fit,” said San Diego County Superior Court Presiding Judge Donald W. Smith, who was in Monterey for the judicial meeting where the new canon of conduct was narrowly adopted.

Local judges contacted Monday said many of their colleagues, amid years of debate both in judicial ranks and by the general public, already have pared their club memberships--for both philosophical and practical reasons.

“It just became too difficult to go to the meetings, even before we thought about the discrimination,” said Vista Municipal Court Presiding Judge Harley Earwicker.

Earwicker, who said he belongs to no private clubs, noted that the judiciary was far from alone in weighing its participation in groups that limit membership on the basis of race or sex.

“These organizations that say ‘men only’--if they don’t face reality pretty soon, they’re going to lose a lot more than judges,” he said.

Judges who have not reviewed their memberships now will be under the gun to do so, said South Bay Municipal Judge Susan Finlay, who supported the new guideline in Monterey.

“I’m sure that the judges who belong to those groups will be thinking very seriously about whether they want to lend their efforts and prestige to organizations that discriminate,” she said.

Much of the debate among the state’s judges about discriminatory private groups has focused on service clubs, such as the Kiwanis and Rotary clubs, that don’t admit women members. Country clubs, fraternal lodges and other groups also have figured in the discussions.

But even with Monday’s vote, it was not entirely clear what memberships had been branded inappropriate.

The new canon warns judges against participating in clubs that practice “invidious” discrimination. Smith said it would largely be up to individual judges to weigh if their organizations’ practices were invidious, and then to decide if they wished to sever ties to such groups.

In theory, someone could bring a complaint against a judge before the state Judicial Performance Commission to test the propriety of the judge’s memberships, but Smith said such challenges were unlikely. More likely, he said, was the possibility that a candidate in a judicial election would make an issue of an opponent’s memberships.

One issue left hazy by the vote, some judges said, was whether a judge who had made a large payment to belong to a country club could properly be pressured under the new guideline to drop that membership and lose his investment. Another uncertainty is the status of Masonic organizations under the new canon; some judges were hopeful they would come under an exception created for religious groups.

Both supporters and foes of the new canon praised the characteristic deliberateness with which their colleagues considered the issue. But naturally, fans of the measure were most enthusiastic.

“It’s difficult enough being a judge,” said one supporter, El Cajon Municipal Judge Elizabeth Riggs, who is black. “To have judges separated by virtue of belonging to associations or organizations that exclude other members of the judiciary creates additional problems and additional tension and distress on the bench which we don’t need as a group.”