D.A. to Give Calabro a 2nd Chance in Slur Case

Dist. Atty. Ira Reiner announced Thursday that he is giving a “second chance” to a Glendale Municipal Court commissioner who was barred from hearing criminal cases because he uttered a racial slur from the bench.

Reiner reversed his earlier position just after the Los Angeles County Bar Assn. released a report that criticized Commissioner Daniel F. Calabro for using a “thoughtless and inappropriate” epithet but cleared him of allegations of racism and said no grounds exist for censuring him.

“There is no basis for concluding that Commissioner Daniel F. Calabro is a racist, has racist sympathies or used an offensive racial epithet . . . with intent to disparage any person or group,” the trustees of the Bar Assn. said in their report.

Action Deferred

Saying that he “deferred” action on Calabro until the Bar Assn. had concluded its investigation, Reiner added: “A number of people . . . have come forward and said that they feel he should be given another chance, and . . . we feel that in light of everything that has occurred, it is appropriate to give him a second chance.”

Because Calabro is a commissioner and not a judge, both sides must agree to let him hear criminal matters.

Calabro referred questions about Thursday’s developments to his attorney, who was on his way to Hawaii and could not be reached.

Cheryl Krott, presiding judge of the Glendale Municipal Court, said she spoke to the commissioner after she received a hand-delivered letter from Reiner informing her of his decision.

“He (Calabro) was obviously very pleased and very relieved,” said Krott, who last month issued a report saying she could find no racial bias on Calabro’s part.

Reiner was widely criticized by defense attorneys and other Calabro supporters after he announced Aug. 25 that he would no longer allow the commissioner to hear criminal cases. He cited the commissioner’s conduct during a June 15 hearing for a white defendant from Burbank who was accused of attacking a black man after saying: “Your kind is not welcome here nigger.”

“Another nigger case?” Calabro responded in open court, according to a transcript. “Another one where this nigger business came up? We’re not past that yet? I thought we were all past that.”

Calabro, 54, who has served on the Glendale bench for six years, has said he was expressing dismay that this case came up only five days after he handled another matter with racial overtones.

Noting that the offensive word was in the police report, the county Bar Assn. said: “The commissioner’s innocent explanation is consistent with the transcript.”

At a news conference Thursday, Larry R. Feldman, president of the 21,000-member Bar Assn., said a four-member subcommittee had interviewed 50 lawyers and court personnel in connection with Reiner’s allegations.

Reiner as well as his top aides were also questioned, Feldman said, but the Bar Assn. made no attempt to assess the district attorney’s handling of the Calabro affair.

In its report, the group did not attempt to reconcile contradictory accounts of Calabro’s behavior. For example, Reiner has said that Calabro was expressing frustration, not dismay, when he used the slur because he was loathe to handle racially sensitive cases.

Additionally, Reiner has accused Calabro of mocking Asian defendants by mimicking their accents, while the commissioner and his supporters have said he merely attempts to pronounce foreign names and words precisely.

“We have no way of independently evaluating that issue,” Feldman said, adding that it is inappropriate for a Bar Assn. to try to resolve “credibility” questions.

While Feldman was talking with reporters, Reiner held a meeting in his office with Michael R. Yamaki, past president of the Japanese-American Bar Assn., and Johnnie L. Cochran Jr., a prominent black attorney and board member of the Los Angeles Urban League, to explain his decision.

Cochran is one of a group of black leaders who were enlisted to join in the Calabro attack and held a Sept. 11 news conference supporting Reiner’s position.

Cochran and John W. Mack, president of the Los Angeles Urban League, said they will reserve comment on Reiner’s reversal until early next week, when they plan to hold a news conference.

Yamaki, who launched his own investigation after an earlier meeting with Reiner, said the district attorney had called Thursday’s meeting to sound out the community representatives.

“He was not going to be in the position of doing what was contrary to what the minority communities thought,” Yamaki said. “If we wanted something different, then he would have reacted differently.”

Yamaki said that after interviewing 14 people and spending 2 1/2 hours talking to Calabro, he concluded that the commissioner was not biased toward minority groups, although he occasionally said “things that might be construed as inappropriate.”

At his news conference, Reiner said he had no regrets about taking on Calabro. The issue had served a “very constructive purpose,” he said, by bringing “into play profound questions about judicial propriety and what the standards are for someone who sits on the bench, whether they should use this language, irrespective of what their intent is.”

Reiner, who has never personally discussed these allegations with Calabro, said the commissioner had acknowledged his “need to be more sensitive” in conversations with top district attorney’s aides.

“He has made it abundantly clear that not tomorrow, not ever again, is he going to be this insensitive,” Reiner said.

Staff writer Stephanie O’Neill contributed to this article.