On-Time Justice Is Judge’s Policy : ‘Maximum Marion’ Given Credit for Most Productive Courtroom

It is 9:05 a.m. and the defendant has not arrived in court. The judge buzzes from her chambers. She has run out of patience.

“She’s going to come out. She wants to come out,” the bailiff informs the attorneys, just before Los Angeles Municipal Judge Marion L. Obera takes the bench.

The missing defendant, Frank Salinas, who is charged with heroin use, is “under the impression” he is not due in court until 9:15, his attorney explains.

“Counsel, I can’t help the impressions these defendants get when they’re ordered to return,” Obera responds dryly. Finding Salinas “voluntarily absent,” she holds a search-and-seizure hearing without him. He loses. (Later she issues a bench warrant for his arrest, ensuring that he will do jail time if and when he is picked up.)

In the Criminal Courts Building, where punctuality usually means that a 9:30 hearing starts by 11, Obera, 56, is a phenomenon, if not an anomaly. She does not hesitate to hold contempt hearings for jurors or witnesses--including police officers--who fail to appear on time.

“I can recall having cases where a juror spent more time in jail than the defendant did,” said Deputy City Atty. Mary E. House, who has extensive experience in Obera’s courtroom.

But to single out Obera for her punctuality alone would be like complimenting Winston Churchill on his grammar. True enough, but hardly sufficient.

When it comes to holding trials, Obera is by far the most productive judge on the 11-court downtown misdemeanor panel, court personnel agree.

“She is really a legend around here,” said Deputy City Atty. Candice Ochi.

Court officials say they no longer keep trial statistics, but about two years ago, the city attorney’s office determined that Obera “did very close to a third” of all the downtown misdemeanor trials that resulted in a verdict, said Deputy City Atty. Charles I. Goldenberg, who supervises central trial prosecutors.

In 1982, the last time the Municipal Court kept track, the typical court was handling 3 to 3 1/2 trials a month, but “Judge Obera used to average about eight,” said Stephen P. Marnell, principal clerk.

Hers is the only courtroom double-staffed by the city attorney’s office because, unlike most of her colleagues, Obera holds back-to-back trials. While one jury is deliberating, another is being impaneled. She has even been known to have two juries out and a third trial in progress.

“A lot of judges take a few hours’ break after sending the jury to the jury room. She doesn’t,” said John R. Austin, court clerk supervisor. “There’s no wasted motion.”

“She’s really frustrated when she’s not working,” said David M. Horwitz, supervising judge of the misdemeanor panel. “She performs the way, ideally, the system should perform.”

Efficiency aside, Obera also draws encomiums from defense attorneys, prosecutors and other judges for her nimble mind, her knowledge of the law and her sense of fairness.

Although she cited him for contempt last year, Deputy Public Defender Enda Brennan said: “You know when you go into her courtroom . . . you’ll get as fair a trial as you can get in the county.”

Attorneys marvel at her ability to recite lengthy jury instructions from memory, and harried court reporters know she takes excellent notes. “When you’re reading back (a transcript to the jury), she’ll follow along . . . If something’s read back wrong, she’ll correct you,” said court reporter Wendy Marshall.

A former social worker, deputy district attorney and staff sergeant with the Women’s Air Force, Obera was named to the bench by Gov. Ronald Reagan in 1970. Despite a voice that bears traces of a Southern drawl, she is a native of Los Angeles who was raised in San Bernardino.

She is an intensely private person, not given to fraternizing with staff or fellow judges. Horwitz, for example, has shared a small corridor with her for several years, yet they have never had lunch together and he knows nothing about her private life, he said.

One of her former clerks, who wished to remain anonymous, said that in the two years he worked for her, she never asked about his family, nor revealed anything about hers.

“I think she keeps her judicial profile all the time, which I think is very appropriate,” Horwitz said. “I have learned from that, and I think other judges could, too.”

For that reason, perhaps, Obera declined repeated requests to be interviewed or photographed by The Times.

It is generally believed that she has turned down offers to be elevated to the Superior Court or the Court of Appeal. (Such offers are considered confidential and thus are impossible to confirm.)

Instead, she apparently prefers to remain in the decidedly unglamorous world of misdemeanors, where the charges range from vandalism to assault with a deadly weapon and the trials usually last no more than three or four days. Occasionally, she will handle a preliminary hearing or motions in connection with a felony case.

A stern and imposing figure on the bench who is known as “Maximum Marion” for her tough approach to sentencing, Obera can be intimidating to the fledgling lawyers who appear before her. Only rarely does she display her most distinctive physical attribute, a dazzling smile, and she reportedly never emerges from her chambers without her robe.

“Oh my God, Obera!” was deputy public defender Patrick Cannon’s reaction when he learned that his first trial was assigned to her court. “I think my knees were clattering, my voice was very, very high.”

But Cannon and other lawyers said their fears gradually subsided as they became familiar with Obera’s procedures. “She’s a delight to work for because she’s so predictable,” said House. “All you have to do is be on time and be prepared.”

When a case is assigned to her courtroom, Obera expects the attorneys to be ready for trial. George W. Trammell, presiding judge of the Municipal Court, said she is less inclined than some judges to nudge the lawyers toward a settlement.

Although he spoke warmly of her abilities, Trammell suggested that her preference for trials over plea bargains is a mixed blessing.

Cannot Try Them All

“Quite frankly, we cannot try every case,” Trammell said. “If you’ve got a judge who’s able to dispose of cases, to me there’s a high value in that.”

“I saw cases that went to trial in her court that shouldn’t have gone to trial,” said Deputy City Atty. Robert J. Ferber, who nevertheless praises her as “probably the best judge we have.”

Deputy City Atty. Goldenberg, however, said his office’s survey included individual judge’s track records on settling cases, and Obera “was remarkably effective in that area, too.” No figures are available, he said.

Attorneys on both sides said her determination to go to trial can sometimes work to their advantage.

Deputy Public Defender Harlan Simon cited one instance in which Obera’s refusal to accept a plea bargain enabled an innocent man to be acquitted.

His client, accused of pistol-whipping a neighbor, said he would accept the prosecution’s offer that he plead to the much lesser charge of disturbing the peace, but the judge insisted on a trial. The jury came back with an acquittal.

Makes the System Work

“By adhering to principle she forced the system to work,” said the admiring defense attorney. “This system doesn’t work if innocent people plead guilty because they’re scared to go to trial.”

Similarly, Robert N. Kwong, a deputy attorney general on loan to the city attorney’s office, recalls the time he agreed to accept a plea of disturbing the peace for a defendant who had been accused of firing a weapon in public. His witnesses were being uncooperative, and Kwong assumed he would lose the trial.

Obera, however, would not hear of it.

To Kwong’s surprise, he won the case. “One thing I’ve learned is that she has good instincts,” the prosecutor said.

Unlike some of her fellow jurists, Obera is often willing to risk reversal by the Superior Court in order to test a legal question, according to Deputy City Atty. William N. Sterling, supervisor of the appellate division. “She’s got a lot of guts,” he said. “She doesn’t shy away from difficult legal issues like a lot of other judges will.”

Basis for Reversal

But one time about six years ago, Obera was reversed for reasons that had nothing to do with legal precedent. She was trying to explain to a heroin addict that his conviction carried a minimum 90-day mandatory jail sentence, when the defendant hurled an obscenity at her, saying, ‘ “Why don’t you give me a goddamn year,’ “prosecutor Ferber recalled.

“She said, ‘All right, if that’s what you want,’ ” Ferber said.

According to other attorneys, the case was overturned on the grounds that the judge had been overly hasty in arriving at her sentence.

When the defendant reappeared, the story goes, she made sure he was calm. Then she assured him that she had had plenty of time to think about the proper penalty.

Finally, she sentenced him a second time. He got 365 days in the county jail.