Reiner Moves to Bar Court Officer Who Used Racial Epithet

Dist. Atty. Ira Reiner issued an order Tuesday effectively barring a white Glendale Municipal Court commissioner from hearing further criminal cases because he used the word “nigger” in court.

Reiner said his prosecutors will no longer agree that Daniel F. Calabro, 54, who has served as a commissioner for six years, can hear any matter filed by the district attorney’s office.

Since Calabro is a court commissioner sitting as a judge, both the prosecution and defense must agree to his hearing a case. He presently handles only arraignments.

Reiner told a news conference that he based his “extreme action” on a June court hearing in which Calabro in a case involving a black assault victim from Burbank was quoted in a court transcript as saying:

“Another nigger case? Another one where this nigger business came up? We’re not (past) that yet? I thought we were all (past) that.”

Reiner declared that in his opinion Calabro’s use of “this incredible, ugly word” had disqualified the commissioner from sitting as a judge.

“You cannot have somebody wearing the robes, sitting in a criminal case who uses this kind of language, especially in an open, formal proceeding, and expect to ever be taken seriously by all of the parties and witnesses to any criminal case thereafter.”

Responding to reporters’ questions about the incident, Calabro repeatedly denied Tuesday that he used “nigger” in a derogatory sense. He said he had used the word to describe the type of matter before him, the second case within a matter of days involving defendants that used the pejorative term.

‘Totally Unfortunate’

The earlier case involved a white Glendale man who posted a racially derogatory note--which included the word “nigger”--to a black woman’s apartment door. Calabro sentenced the man, Jack Anthony Ferreira, to 30 days in jail and placed him on three years’ probation.

“I was not using the word referring to any person or group of persons,” Calabro said. “I was using the word to describe an incident that was in the report before me. My reaction was, ‘Oh no! not another case involving the same type of ugly problem--not another racial slur.’ And that is the basis out of which (the incident) arose.

“The use of the word was totally unfortunate,” he said. “I’m sorry that I used it. I should not have used it. I will never use it again. . . . I can assure you I have no prejudice against any group of persons or a specific individual.”

Reiner said that what happens to the commissioner next is up to the Glendale Judicial District, where Calabro sits.

Calabro expressed the hope that he could meet with Reiner about the incident.

Acting Presiding Judge Barbara Lee Burke of the Glendale Judicial District issued a statement declaring that the court will assign no criminal matters to Calabro pending an investigation.

“Racism in any form, in word or deed, is totally unacceptable in the judicial system and therefore this allegation is of the utmost seriousness, warranting and requiring a thorough investigation,” Burke said.

Calabro’s use of the epithet came in a case involving Martin Jan Ivan Dorin, 18, of Glendale, who pleaded no contest to attacking Reggie Wainwright, 32, at a bus stop where the Burbank man was waiting for a bus.

Dorin was joined in the assault on Wainwright by three other white youths, who were not identified or arrested.

Dorin was quoted by authorities as telling Wainwright, “Your kind is not welcome here, nigger.”

Calabro sentenced Dorin to 20 days in County Jail, placed him on two years’ summary probation and ordered him to pay $288 restitution to the victim. Dorin could have been sentenced to six months for battery.

‘Nothing Funny’

In condemning Calabro’s remark made during the Dorin hearing, Reiner said the commissioner had explained later that he was “trying to inject a note of ‘levity’ into the proceedings.”

“There is nothing funny about this ugly word,” Reiner said in a letter to Calabro. “ ‘Nigger’ is the single most abusive slang description for a black person. Yet, it is a word which passed all too comfortably from your lips during a formal proceeding. Such feelings cannot help but influence, consciously or otherwise, a substantial number of your judgments as a judicial officer.”

Calabro denied that he had used the word as a form of levity.

“That’s completely backward,” Calabro said, referring to Reiner’s characterization.

Calabro said that, in a telephone conversation with a Reiner staff member, he was asked, “ ‘Did you do this to get a laugh?’

“My immediate and unequivocal response was ‘no, not at all,’ ” Calabro said. “It was totally a reaction to the fact that we have this ugly problem coming up again . . . and I thought we had finished with the issue.”