Judge Accused of Doctoring Docket, Then Lying About It

A Municipal judge ordered his clerk to alter a court docket to prevent the dismissal of a misdemeanor case, then lied about the order under oath, according to the defense attorney in the case.

The attorney, Byron K. McMillan, on Thursday accused Judge Blair T. Barnette of South County Municipal Court of having his clerk change the docket in a hit-run case that had not been brought to trial within the legally required period, in an unsuccessful bid to halt its dismissal.

Neither Barnette nor his clerk, Monica Richards, returned telephone calls from The Times.

McMillan, a former judge in the county’s Superior and Municipal courts, said Barnette neglected to get the trial under way within 10 days of its scheduled starting date, Feb. 10. Unless the defense agrees to a continuance, the law requires that a case be dismissed if it does not come to trial within that time, he said.

“Under the code, they have 10 days to get you out to trial,” McMillan said. “On the 19th of February, the case was ordered (postponed) to the 24th. Because of the weekend, the 10th day would have fallen on Monday, the 22nd. On the 23rd, I brought a motion to dismiss because I wasn’t given a trial in 10 days.”

Iles Dismissed Case

A hearing on that motion was held Feb. 23 before the presiding judge of South County Municipal Court, Pamela Lee Iles. She dismissed the case against McMillan’s client, Randall Smith.

McMillan said Thursday the court’s docket had been falsely altered to show that he had requested a continuance of the case to Feb. 24.

No transcript exists of the proceeding at which the continuance was sought--according to the docket--because court reporters are not generally used in the county’s municipal courts.

Barnette and Richards gave contradictory testimony at the Feb. 23 hearing, McMillan said.

“I showed the clerk the docket and directed her attention to the entry where it said, ‘Case (postponed) to Feb. 24,’ ” McMillan said.

“That was crossed out, saying instead ‘Case continued to the 24th at motion of defendant.’ I asked her who crossed it out. She said, ‘I did.’ ”

McMillan said Richards testified that Barnette had ordered her to make the change on Feb. 19 at 4:30 p.m., when the two were conferring in the judge’s chambers.

When Barnette took the stand, he testified that he had not ordered his clerk to make the change, McMillan said.

“We’ve got two diametrically opposed versions,” McMillan said. “Either you believe the clerk or you believe (Barnette). Apparently, the judge (Iles) believed the clerk because she dismissed the case.”

Iles could not be reached for comment.

McMillan declined to speculate about why Barnette might have changed the docket.

“I’m not on a crusade. I don’t have anything against him or the court,” McMillan said. “But in Orange County, the docket is very important. The integrity of the court depends on the accuracy of the entries in that docket.”

Barnette was appointed to the Municipal Court bench by then-Gov. Ronald Reagan in 1972. In 1979, he received a commendation from county supervisors for rescuing a woman from an attacker in a Corona del Mar beach cove.

Jack Frankel, the director of the state Commission on Judicial Performance in San Francisco, declined to comment on McMillan’s allegations.

He said the commission, which oversees judicial conduct, does not disclose whether complaints have been filed against judges or disciplinary action taken against judges unless they have been recommended for public admonishment by the state Supreme Court.

Frankel did say Barnette had never received any public reprimand from the commission.