Judge Thomas Is Ordered on 2-Month Leave

Judge Maxine Thomas, the controversial one-time head of the Los Angeles Municipal Court, was abruptly taken off the bench this week and placed on a two-month medical leave after attorneys complained to top court officials about her erratic hours and bizarre courtroom behavior, court sources said Friday.

Municipal Court Presiding Judge George Trammell took the action Thursday after meeting with a contingent of deputy prosecutors and public defenders, who reportedly attributed the jurist’s behavior to possible drug use.

Among other things, attorneys said the 40-year-old Thomas is often inattentive, keeps witnesses waiting for hours, even days, and interrupts lawyers’ examination of witnesses to ask questions they consider either trivial or irrelevant.

On Oct. 30, only hours after a prosecutor observed that Thomas appeared “loaded” because she was “almost sprawling” across her desk and wore “facial expressions that seemed inconsistent with what was going on in the courtroom,” the judge was found lying in her chambers incoherent and in a fetal position, according to court sources.

Another judge was called to take over her duties that afternoon.

Thomas, a Municipal Court judge since 1980, declined comment through Geraldine D. Green, a close friend who described herself as the judge’s spokeswoman.

But Green said that Thomas took a medical leave because of severe lower back pain, which became particularly acute Oct. 30, the last day she appeared in court. In addition, Thomas has been ill with the flu and is suffering from mental exhaustion because of marital difficulties, Green said.

Denying the drug-use allegations, Green said: “She stands ready, willing and able to take a drug test anytime anybody requests her to do so. The allegation that keeps rearing its head, of drug use, is just totally false.”

Thomas, who was ousted as presiding judge after an unprecedented recall last year, was chastised in July by the state Commission on Judicial Performance for work habits that were described as “prejudicial to the administration of justice in Los Angeles.”

But rather than accept a private admonishment from the commission, Thomas requested a formal hearing to answer the criticism. In preparing for the hearing, an investigating attorney for the San Francisco-based commission has been querying prosecutors, deputy public defenders and police officers about her courtroom demeanor.

Since her ouster as presiding judge and her resounding defeat last November for the Superior Court, Thomas mainly has been overseeing felony preliminary hearings.

Sources said the latest allegations--that of possible drug use and increasingly quirky behavior over the last two months--first were made in the course of recent phone calls from prosecutors and deputy public defenders to the commission.

Commission officials, a source said, were told that Thomas “was on the bench (and appeared to be) under the influence of a substance that was impairing her ability as a judge.”

Trammell reportedly was contacted by the commission and then talked to some of those same attorneys Tuesday night. On Wednesday, case files were removed from Thomas’ courtroom in the downtown Criminal Courts Building, the sources said.

Trammell would confirm only that in a telephone conversation Thursday with Thomas and her attorney, Johnnie L. Cochran Jr., “I proposed that Maxine take a medical leave of absence. He (Cochran) has agreed. That’s it.”

Prosecutors and defense attorneys have repeatedly complained that Thomas starts her day late and often works through the noon hour, taking a long lunch break in the afternoon while witnesses are waiting to testify. Her court sometimes remains in session until well into the evening, the lawyers say.

“Her hours are too awful to believe,” Deputy Dist. Atty. Patricia Shrader said. “It’s too unfair to everyone else in the courtroom.”

In addition, as of Friday, court records show that Thomas had been absent more than 20 days since mid-September, an absenteeism rate of more than 50%.

On Oct. 28, Thomas was in the midst of questioning a witness when she summoned the attorneys to the bench for a side-bar conference. “Do you have any nail glue?” she asked, according to Deputy Dist. Atty. Lisa Scott.

“She showed us she had a broken nail. It was flapping in the breeze,” said Deputy Public Defender Manuel Martinez Jr., who overheard the remark.

“I was just embarrassed for her,” Scott said.

Deputy Dist. Atty. Paula Palmor and Deputy Public Defender Mark Kaiserman said they were frustrated that a preliminary hearing in a gang-related murder case, which should have taken a few hours, dragged on over three days last week and eventually went to another judge.

Palmor said it was her impression the morning of Oct. 30 that Thomas might be on drugs because she was slumping at her desk and smiling when serious matters were being discussed. But “she seemed to be getting better as the morning wore on,” Palmor said.

At 11:30 a.m., Thomas left the bench to research a motion by Kaiserman to disqualify her from hearing the case.

By afternoon, Kaiserman said, he had decided to withdraw his motion. But in mid-afternoon, Municipal Court Judge Glenette Blackwell took the bench in Thomas’ place, after announcing that Thomas had become ill.

Knowledgeable court sources said Thomas was discovered by a substitute bailiff who came to check on her when she failed to return to the bench after her lunch break. The clerk and another judge were summoned and, one official said, “It was determined she could not finish the calendar . . . and couldn’t get home on her own.”