Judge Decides Not to Serve on New Orange County Court

A long-sought federal courthouse in Santa Ana is scheduled to open in December, but at least one of the two judges who volunteered to staff it has changed his mind, a federal court executive said Monday.

That has left court officials scrambling to come up with a plan to fully staff the new facility, and some lawyers said they fear it may delay the opening.

After years of arcane infighting over a site for a branch court in Orange County, federal officials in February signed a lease on property in downtown Santa Ana, and a modular courthouse planned to last 10 years is nearing completion.

But Judge Terry J. Hatter is no longer interested in serving on the new Orange County federal bench, said George C. Ryker, court executive for the Los Angeles federal bench. Hatter was one of just two of the 22 active U.S. District Court judges in Los Angeles who would even consider moving to Orange County.

The other was Alicemarie Stotler. Ryker would not comment on her status, but other sources, active in the effort to bring federal judicial service to Orange County’s 2.2 million residents, said she has yet to make a final commitment.

“We were operating on the assumption that two judges would volunteer to go down there,” Ryker said. “Now we have to go back to the drawing boards and work up contingency plans on how we are going to man the court.”

The factors that make the new court unattractive to judges are a crushing workload, security problems in the modular courthouse and leaving a familiar environment in Los Angeles, according to interviews with lawyers, court officials and one federal judge.

A committee of judges and other officials is scheduled to meet Thursday in Los Angeles to consider what to do about the potentially judgeless courthouse.

“We on the (committee) are going back to the drawing boards to give the court (in Los Angeles) alternatives for running the Santa Ana court,” Ryker said. “Our prior planning and assumptions have changed.

“The court has recognized a commitment to staff the courthouse down there, and the judges recognize that commitment. We just have to figure out how to do this.”

The Santa Ana federal court operation, first approved by Congress in 1980, would be a branch of the U.S. District Court for the Central District of California. The district covers seven counties with a population of almost 12 million. As of 1983, Orange County had a larger population than more than half of the almost 200 federal judicial districts in the nation.

The Orange County branch court was pushed as a convenience for lawyers, which would save their clients money because attorneys would no longer have to go to downtown Los Angeles for federal cases.

Lawyer Garvin F. Shallenberger, long active in the push to bring a federal court to the county, said he heard last week that none of the active district judges in Los Angeles wants to transfer.

That would leave the possibility that one or more of the 10 judges on senior status--semiretired judges who have the right to refuse to take particular cases--might be assigned here.

Shallenberger said the court needs active, full-time judges, rather than senior judges “who have earned the right to take it easy.”

What Shallenberger called the heavy crush of business in Orange County was confirmed by Ryker. A study of all cases filed since October shows that the amount of litigation originating in Orange County is so large that four judges--not two--are justified today, Ryker said.

Maurice Mandel II, head of the fledgling Orange County Chapter of the Federal Bar Assn., said Stotler is “still interested.” Mandel also said the Los Angeles court has yet to work out local court rules that could have a key impact on whether judges will want to serve in Orange County.

Should Stotler alone open the court, her caseload would be staggering.

“But even if only one (judge) comes, it would be a move in the right direction,” Mandel said. “We have to get off the starting block on this. We need to have a judge in this county beginning to establish a track record.”

Other options include rotating judges into Santa Ana, assigning to Orange County a second federal magistrate, who could act as a judge if all parties consented, or “involuntary assignment of a judge,” Mandel said. Federal magistrates handle low-level, civil and routine cases.

The ultimate solution may be creating new judgeships, Ryker said. But such a move is unlikely before the presidential election next year.

The judicial staffing situation leaves federal prosecutors, public defenders and marshals in uncertain territory. All three offices planned to create or expand Orange County operations when judges moved to the new courthouse, at Santa Ana Boulevard and Flower Street.

Mandel and Shallenberger were planning a dedication ceremony for the first week in December--an event that Shallenberger said will probably be delayed.