Judge Trades Robes for Job as Deputy Public Defender

Superior Court Judge Robert H. Green, who retired last week a few hours before his 70th birthday, has traded in his black robes and spacious chambers for a cramped, windowless office as a deputy public defender.

It may seem an odd move for someone who has sat on the bench for 12 years, but Green said he was defending the accused long before he became a judge.

“I may not be able to carry the workload of someone 35, but I think I’ve got something to offer,” he said Friday, his last day as a Superior Court judge. He starts his new job today and, he said, “I’m told there is a capital case waiting for me when I get there.”

He will be in familiar company. Not only does Green have many friends in the public defender’s office, but one of its attorneys is his daughter, Susan E. Green, a deputy public defender in Harbor Court.

“She pressured me a little bit to accept the job,” Green said. “But I’ve had it in the back of my mind for several months. This is what I wanted to do.”

Green was known as one of the leading liberals on the Orange County bench. He has been privately and publicly criticized by some prosecutors, and even some of his colleagues, as lenient to defendants in criminal cases.

A few years ago, he was picketed by a group of parents protesting his decision to reduce bail for a defendant in a child molestation case. Prosecutors also criticized him when he sentenced a woman to five years for kidnaping instead of life in prison.

But Green also has many admirers, and there was a line of well-wishers in his courtroom Friday through much of the day.

“He not only is one of our great legal minds, he is a paragon of civility,” said Superior Court Judge Leonard Goldstein, who worked with Green in the 1960s before either was on the bench. “Even his critics would have to admit that they like him.”

Green dismisses any criticism of his performance on the bench. Seldom, he said, did any prosecutors petition to keep him off their cases. But he does concede that “sentencings were very hard for me. It was very difficult for me to send someone to prison for 10, 12 years.”

Chief Deputy Public Defender Carl C. Holmes said the retiring judge will be a natural in the public defender’s office.

“Judge Green has long been a believer in individual rights,” Holmes said. “We’re fortunate to have someone of his caliber.”

Appointed to Bench in 1976

Green’s law career began in Santa Ana in 1946. He was in private practice for 30 years, primarily in criminal law, before then-Gov. Edmund G. Brown Jr. appointed him to the Superior Court bench in 1976.

He is candid about his liberal credentials. In his chambers, beside a 17th-Century Zurbaran print and a New Yorker magazine cover, is a Picasso print of a peace dove.

“I was the only lawyer in the county for years who would handle conscientious objectors,” Green said. “A lot of lawyers wouldn’t touch them.”

Susan Green said she remembers going on peace marches with her parents in the 1960s, and her father defending people in unpopular cases.

“He’s been a tremendous influence on me,” she said. “I can remember long discussions at the dinner table about the law and some of his cases.”

The biggest change in criminal law over the years, the elder Green said, has been the courts’ recognition of defendants’ rights.

“Back when I started, judges didn’t really care if someone’s rights were violated,” Green said. “They let evidence in any way they could.”

‘It Looked Like a Fun Job’

After so many years in private practice, Green said, he accepted appointment to the bench because “it looked like a fun job, being a judge.”

And he discovered, he said, that he liked it. “Judges can go sailing on weekends; lawyers have to spend that time poring over transcripts,” he explained.

His time on the bench also taught him much about civil law.

“You get a lot more truthful testimony in criminal cases than you do in civil cases,” Green said. “I’ve had statements made in civil cases which were strange .”

Green would have kept the job, but under California law judges who remain on the bench past 70 forfeit many of their retirement benefits.

And so, the jurist who isn’t ready to retire begins a third career.

“At 70, it would be just too hard to try to start my own practice,” he said. “Ron Butler (the county’s public defender) expressed an interest in me, and I’ve long had tremendous respect for people in that office.”

Chief Deputy Public Defender Holmes said Green will lend a certain dignity to the office.

“The community often doesn’t understand what we do,” Holmes said. “We appreciate having someone like Judge Green want to join us.”

Susan Green said she is proud of her father’s decision. “I think he’s making a political statement; it lends credence to what we’re doing,” she said.

The elder Green said he will pursue his latest career “as long as I can.”

“I could never just retire. I’m not a workaholic, but I have to work. I have to have an office to go to.”