Calabro Not a Racist, Rights Groups Agree as Dispute Ends

Spokesmen for three civil rights groups and a black lawyers’ association said Monday they have concluded that Glendale Municipal Court Commissioner Daniel F. Calabro is not a racist, even though he uttered a racial slur from the bench.

But while endorsing Dist. Atty. Ira Reiner’s decision last week to allow Calabro to resume hearing criminal cases, the spokesmen said they hoped that Gov. George Deukmejian would not appoint him to a judgeship.

Calabro, 54, is one of several possible candidates for a vacant seat on the Glendale Municipal Court whose names are being circulated by the Bar’s Commission on Judicial Nominees Evaluation, his attorney said.

‘An Absolute Insult’

“There should be some consequences for what Commissioner Calabro did and what he said,” Mark Ridley-Thomas, executive director of the Southern Christian Leadership Conference of Greater Los Angeles, told reporters. “And it seems to us to be an absolute insult . . . to consider elevating someone to a higher post with all the benefits attached thereto, when in fact there has been at least a display of indiscretion.”

Ridley-Thomas was joined at the news conference by John W. Mack, president of the Los Angles Urban League; Raymond Johnson, president of the local chapter of the National Assn. for the Advancement of Colored People, and Charles Dickerson, vice president of the Langston Bar Assn., which claims a membership of more than 200 black lawyers.

Monday’s announcement appeared to close an episode that began Aug. 25, when Reiner announced that he would no longer permit Calabro to preside over criminal cases. Since Calabro is not a judge, both sides must agree to let him hear such matters.

Reiner cited a June 15 hearing involving a white defendant who had attacked a black man after saying, “Your kind is not welcome here, nigger.”

“Another nigger case?” Calabro said 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 has said he was expressing outrage over the high incidence of such racial-hate cases. A similar case had come before him only five days earlier.

After the commissioner drew widespread sympathy, Reiner enlisted the support of several black leaders, including Ridley-Thomas and Mack. At a Sept. 11 news conference, they urged that Calabro be barred from hearing criminal cases pending an investigation by the Los Angeles County Bar Assn.

The lawyers’ group last week cleared Calabro of allegations of racism. A similar finding was reached by the Langston Bar Assn., which said: “We have no evidence upon which to conclude that Commissioner Calabro is a racist, or that he exhibits racial bias either inside or outside of his courtroom.”

The group called on Reiner to create a special unit within the district attorney’s office to focus on crimes of racial violence.

Commenting on this proposal, Greg Thompson, special assistant to Reiner, said, “We’re going to talk to them about their ideas.”