Judge Harelson Starred as the ‘Referee’ of a Very Tough Trial

The moment was vintage Gil Harelson.

The Superior Court judge had been presiding for more than two months in the mean-spirited lawsuit pitting Eugene Klein, the former owner of the San Diego Chargers, against Al Davis, his arch-rival and managing general partner of the Los Angeles Raiders.

Now, finally, came the time for the lawyers’ closing statements. But first there was a disagreement to settle over whether television cameras would be allowed to photograph the arguments.

Klein’s lawyer, Joseph Cotchett--who played to the press throughout the trial--had no objection. Davis’ attorney, Robert Baxley--who wanted as little publicity as possible for the charge of malicious prosecution against his client--was opposed to TV coverage.

Harelson issued his decision: he would satisfy both lawyers. The cameras could record Cotchett’s argument, but they would be shut off for Baxley’s.

Baxley, knowing he’d gotten the worst of the ruling, bounded to his feet. “That’s like Solomon, judge!” he shouted.

Harelson smiled serenely. “Thank you very much,” he said.

In 16 years on the bench, Judge Gilbert Harelson has never been one to let an opening for a quip slip by. He’s never met a joke he didn’t like. And, the targets of his wit might demur, Harelson hardly has been loath to recycle gibes that have met with success in the past.

“He’s got a great talent for adapting stale jokes to new situations,” cracked Justice Edward Butler of the 4th District Court of Appeal, Harelson’s comedic nemesis and close friend.

On Jan. 5, Harelson, 67, is retiring--34 years to the day after he opened a private law practice in La Mesa and a day before his 43rd wedding anniversary.

His departure from the bench ends a long career in public life. As a novice lawyer, he was a deputy district attorney, and then became a deputy attorney general. For 13 years, he was city attorney of El Cajon, practicing law in a firm that propelled three of its name partners--Harelson, Superior Court Judge Jack Levitt and U.S. District Judge William Enright--into the judiciary.

He is a conservative Republican with a background in prosecution. He has a reputation for fairness. His brother Hugh, 56, publisher of Arizona Highways magazine, says the judge’s upbringing in a pioneer Arizona family may be the source of that ethic.

Their grandfather, H.C. Gilbert, was a superior court judge in Maricopa County in the 1920s and, perhaps, the greatest influence on his young namesake. Their father, Roy Harelson, was a livestock dealer in Glendale, Ariz.--a horse trader, primarily--who rode a palomino in the Tournament of Roses Parade but couldn’t convince either of his sons to enjoy working with animals.

“He learned a bit from Dad’s horse-swapping days,” Hugh said. “Maybe that inspired Gilbert to hand out . . . the proper amount of justice from the bench.”

“Sometimes I think I should have stayed with the horses,” said the judge, contemplating the braying he’s heard at times in his courtroom. “At least they didn’t talk back to me.”

Harelson was a starting third baseman for the University of Arizona varsity in the late 1930s, and he remains an insatiable sports fan. Superior Court Presiding Judge Donald Smith said it was no accident he assigned the Klein-Davis case to Harelson as his swan song on the bench. Former NFL stars, team owners and sundry celebrities paraded in and out of Harelson’s court--to the delight of the judge, who told his colleagues he had thought of wearing a black-and-white-striped referee’s shirt to work during the trial.

Harelson is completing his second tour on the bench. He quit his first judicial job, on the El Cajon Municipal Court, in 1959, having lasted less than a year before the endless barrage of traffic cases and small-claims disputes wore him down.

“I think I was too young when I went on,” Harelson said.

His surprise resignation was a rare public display of one of Harelson’s most deep-seated qualities--utter indecision about his personal affairs.

“When he was going to leave the El Cajon bench, he asked everybody, including the postman, what he should do,” one judge recalled. “And then when he did in fact send in his letter of resignation . . . he went and got it out of the letter box and put it back in again.”

Harelson’s relatives see his vacillating side as well.

“Whenever Gilbert visits the family here, it takes seemingly forever to get the final decisions made,” said brother Hugh. “Not only does he procrastinate, but he changes his mind several times. It keeps us all off guard whenever he visits us--not only as to what we’re going to do the next day, but the next hour.”

Hugh Harelson suspects the judge simply gets his fill of decision-making in court. And indeed, there’s no doubt about the man’s decisiveness on the job.

For years, a black marble box with three lights--red, yellow and green--sat atop the desk in his courtroom, a gift from the La Mesa City Council after his appointment to the Superior Court. When Harelson rejected a lawyer’s motion, he turned on the red light. When he sustained a motion, he turned on the green light.

The third bulb meant “maybe.” Said Harelson: “I never used the yellow light.”

His most memorable trials have been murder cases, Harelson said, though in recent years the court has used his horse-trading skills by assigning him to settlement conferences in civil cases. He has filled virtually every job the Superior Court offers--other than serving at Juvenile Court.

“I take it home with me,” Harelson explained. “I couldn’t do it.”

One task he does carry home is his honorific assignment as chief roastmaster of the San Diego bar.

All year long, friends say, Harelson relentlessly scans the newspapers for mentions of the low points of lawyers’ and politicians’ careers. He files away bits of gossip phoned in by his spies and assistants, however rarefied or rancid. Then, at dinners of the bar and trial lawyers associations, he puts his deadpan style on display, skewering judges and lawyers indiscriminately.

The dinners are off-the-record affairs. But last week, at The Times’ request, Harelson unearthed a few representative cracks and aimed them at prominent San Diego jurists.

Of Smith, the presiding judge who will join him in retirement next month, Harelson said:

“Judge Smith says he has mixed emotions about leaving the bench. He’ll miss the job very much. How he could miss a job he never worked in is awful hard to understand.”

Of Superior Court Judge Thomas Duffy, who will succeed Smith as presiding judge:

“If you write anything nice about Duffy, be sure to publish his picture with the article. Otherwise, I won’t recognize who you’re writing about.”

Of Butler, his frequent foil, who often can be seen wrestling Harelson for the microphone on the dais at bar functions:

“Judge Butler doesn’t mind going to work. It’s the long wait until quitting time that bothers him.”

The sting of Harelson’s shots is softened for his victims by the knowledge that someone--usually Butler--will strike back.

At the annual San Diego County Bar Assn. dinner early this month, attorney John Little said, Butler wished Harelson well in his retirement.

“The retirement of Judge Harelson will greatly lighten the load of the appellate court,” Butler said. “We just hope he doesn’t go back into private practice, because that would greatly increase the load of the appellate court.”

Harelson tells a similar joke on himself.

He says he recently ran into Justice William Todd, one of Butler’s colleagues on the appellate bench. Todd kidded him about the number of pending appeals from Harelson’s rulings, and asked how the Appeal Court could keep him informed when they reversed his decisions, now that he was going into retirement.

“I said my clerk already got a stamp made,” Harelson said. “ ‘Addressee unknown.’ ”