The Rise and Fall of Maxine Thomas : Judge Afflicted by Professional, Personal Trauma

The courthouse bailiff would say only that something was “very wrong” when she summoned a court clerk into Judge Maxine Thomas’ chambers that cool, cloudy day last October.

Clerk Richard Haines found Thomas--the first black woman to head the Municipal Court and a role model for young blacks in Los Angeles--slumped in her leather chair. The 40-year-old judge’s head was bowed, and she wept uncontrollably.

“What do I do? What do I do?” she repeated almost mechanically. “I’m so ashamed.”

It would be the last day Thomas spent as a Municipal Court judge. Disabled by the breakdown she suffered that morning, Thomas was relieved of her duties the following week. She is in seclusion, seeking a disability retirement from the courts and checking in and out of hospitals for her emotional problems.

“I thought Maxine was a lady of unlimited potential,” said a friend, Reginald Dunn, a top official in the city attorney’s office. “It’s more than just sad. It’s a full-blown tragedy.”

More than just a personal disaster, her collapse, in a very real sense, has been a blow to the black community in Los Angeles. Viewed as a rising star among young black professionals, Thomas was revered not only for what she had accomplished but for inspiring others to reach for their dreams.

What she may have felt as her world shattered is known only to a few. Outside her circle of intimates, Thomas is unwilling, perhaps unable, to talk about it.

And, after more than 60 interviews with friends and critics, no simple explanation emerges.

What is known is that Thomas was accustomed to success and had encountered few obstacles on her rise to the bench. Once there, in an arena where applause was not automatic, her fortunes shifted dramatically. Thomas’ downfall came after two years of professional and personal trauma. When she experienced that very public failure, she was unable to cope.

“She’s a small, frail person,” said Johnnie L. Cochran Jr., a prominent attorney and longtime Thomas friend. “A human being breaks. . . . All of these things turned in on her.”

Some Thomas friends say she was targeted for trouble by a cabal of jealous judges who openly criticized her every move. These judges, they claim, were driven by racism and sexism, a theory that seems to be based more on emotion than real events.

Thomas’ critics contend she brought about her own downfall. Among other things, they say Thomas acted unprofessionally, treated her fellow judges with disdain and, in the end, held the court up to ridicule.

By all accounts, it was a disastrous finish that few could ever have imagined. From the beginning, it seemed the petite Thomas, with her incandescent smile, was meant to be someone special.

Brainy, beautiful and ambitious, she worked hard, did well in college, became a homecoming queen, earned her law degree, joined the right civic and professional groups, cultivated all the right social contacts.

With the backing of Supervisor Kenneth Hahn and City Councilman Gilbert Lindsay, she swiftly catapulted into a series of “firsts.” By 24, she was a corporate attorney in Los Angeles and by 32 a municipal judge. By 38, Thomas became the first black woman to head the nation’s largest Municipal Court system.

Anything seemed possible.

There were disappointments along the way, to be sure. But the setbacks, whether personal or professional, were minor, and it seemed certain to most who knew her that her apparent storybook life would have the obligatory happy ending.

Now, all that has changed. Played out against the backdrop of a Municipal Court plagued by petty bickering and sometimes palpable animosity toward Thomas, her turnabout has been spectacular.

In unprecedented fashion, fellow jurists overwhelmingly voted her out of her post as presiding judge and then she lost a well-publicized bid for a Superior Court judgeship. She suffered through the embarrassment of a marriage that never actually took place and she struggled against rumors of drug abuse, none based on eyewitness accounts.

Finally, there was the disgrace of that last day in court.

Clearly, her undoing came as a shock to most people. But in the view of some critics, it was foreseeable, given the contradictions in her character.

Pampered, emotionally immature and unforgiving on one hand, she could also be seductively charming, selflessly kind. In public, she could inspire children with her speeches on how to succeed. In private, faced with disappointment or dissension, she could resort to temper tantrums.

‘Duality’ Cited

As one judge put it, “There is a difference between her public persona and this other person there. There’s always been that duality.”

The only child of a janitor and a sometime domestic worker, Thomas grew up in the heart of South-Central Los Angeles in a nondescript frame house near 47th Street and Hooper Avenue. She was adored as a child, coddled as an adult. Her doting mother even entered her into a beauty contest for babies when she was not yet a year old. Of course, her friends say, Thomas won.

“Maxine never had to do anything. She wasn’t the type of girl who ever had to clean up her room,” said actress Shirley Washington, Thomas’ closest friend and confidante for the past 16 years.

Even as a little girl, Thomas was the consummate doer. There were drill team practices in the park at Avalon and 51st Street every Saturday, a stint as a teen princess for the Masons and endless activities at the Second Baptist Church.

In high school, Thomas was the “girl most likely.” She wore the trendiest clothes, ran with the most popular crowd. The way her friends see it, she was almost too good to be real. She was an honors society member, a cheerleader, the president of clubs. She was a good daughter, loyal and obedient besides.

It was her parents, especially her mother, Thomas would say later, who taught her to push for the impossible.

“My mother really encouraged me to take advantage of all the educational opportunities, and I’m really glad I did,” Thomas said shortly after becoming a presiding judge in 1986.

After graduating from Los Angeles High School, she began college close to home, first at Los Angeles City College and then at Cal State Los Angeles, where she was a speech major. Then came her first trip away from home and law school at the University of Iowa. There, she won the title of the Afro-American Students’ homecoming queen.

After earning a law degree in 1971, Thomas returned to Los Angeles and began work in the legal division of Atlantic Richfield Co. She left within two years for a more challenging position at Pacific Lighting Corp.

The schedule both in and outside of work was frenetic. In those years, Thomas held office or was otherwise active in almost two dozen community and professional groups. At a time when women in key positions were still a rarity, she became the first female president of the predominantly black John M. Langston Bar Assn. She was only 27.

Despite the grinding schedule, Thomas still made time for dating and partying. Friends say she was engaged once or twice but never married because she simply was too intimidating for most beaus. Among her boyfriends was a businessman named Jim McBeth, who later married Veronica Simmons McBeth, now a judge. Some Thomas cronies say the women’s early rivalry over Jim McBeth planted the seeds for their friend’s later problems on the court.

But there was no hint in the mid-1970s of what was to come, and in fact, Thomas had become a beacon in the black community. She was the sweetheart of the Los Angeles Sentinel, the leading black newspaper in town. Mothers told their little girls about Thomas and teachers their students. Men and women of power in Los Angeles took her as their protege.

Attorney Cochran, who now represents Thomas, characterizes her as having “reached almost heroine status in the black community.”

For Thomas, it was all according to plan.

“She was a very friendly young lawyer with a great future,” said state Atty. Gen. John K. Van de Kamp, who first met Thomas in the early 1970s. “It was a time for strong and able black women. . . . She impressed me as being smart . . . as someone who could get ahead.”

Her obvious appeal was not lost on then-Gov. Edmund G. Brown Jr. In 1980, he named her to the Municipal Court bench. In short order, she got down to work in typical Thomas style, joining committees and starting projects.

She launched a night version of small claims court and then joined her judicial colleague Richard Adler in promoting a program to process short civil cases at night and in opening a special small claims court for visitors to the 1984 Olympics. Thomas was written up in the newspapers, not part of the routine for most Municipal Court judges.

There was rumbling among some of the judges, and in private the more critical of them began deriding her, questioning where she was trying to go with her splashy programs and complaining that she was neglecting the nitty-gritty work of the court.

“I think that all along there was a perception of her by a not unsubstantial group of people that there was more form than substance, that there was a lot of razzle-dazzle and not a lot to back it up,” said one of those critics. Like several others, this judge asked not to be identified to avoid further rancor on the court.

Poor Marks

In the summer of 1983, Thomas filled in for two months on the Court of Appeal. Evaluated afterward, she got poor marks.

“She wasn’t able to function very well,” said Justice Joan Dempsey Klein, who reviewed Thomas’ performance. “I’m not sure if it was intellect or inability to concentrate.”

Eager to move upward, Thomas lobbied heavily for election to one of Municipal Court’s largely ceremonial positions, that of assistant presiding judge. After losing twice, she finally made it on the third try. But the losses were costly.

In her first bid for the post, she competed against Candace Cooper, a highly respected judge who had been appointed to the Municipal Court the same day, and a third candidate, a male judge. By the time both women lost the hard-fought race, the relations between Cooper, also black, and Thomas had permanently soured.

Thomas’ dealings with some others on the court also provoked hard feelings. Her critics say she frequently showed up late in the morning, impudently dismissed the views of older, more established judges and more than once engaged in shouting matches with a fellow jurist.

Two camps formed in the court, one for and one against the feisty Thomas. When she began tangling with Court Administrator Edward M. Kritzman, the gulf widened.

Thomas and Kritzman, who is the court’s highest-ranking employee, skirmished over her request for new office furniture. They went to war after Kritzman ordered a clerk to search her chambers in her absence for a missing file. Irate, she hauled the administrator into her courtroom and lambasted him from the bench while a court reporter took notes.

Shortly after that, she ran for the court’s presiding judgeship. Although the post routinely goes to assistant presiding judges, Thomas waged an all-out campaign, visiting every judge in every branch courthouse. Unopposed, she received only 48 votes. The 24 other judges abstained.

“Maxine’s election was not the result of any great consensus,” one judge wryly observed. “She had run over and over again and finally the perception was . . . ‘How much harm can she do? She’s never going to go away . . . so let’s just do it and get it over with.’ ”

Misjudged Her Clout

The title in hand, Thomas misjudged the clout that came with it and created an uproar when she staged a showy installation ceremony and threw Kritzman out of his office while he was away burying his mother. Finally, she started shuffling judges’ assignments.

“I think she thought the job carried a certain power it just doesn’t carry,” said retired Municipal Judge Xenophon Lang Sr. “You’re certainly not the boss of other judges. . . . You’re not a king of anything or queen of anything.”

The grumbling turned angry, however, when Thomas plucked rival Cooper off the highly publicized “Night Stalker” serial murder case and then proudly announced that her ailing mother had persuaded her to run for the Superior Court.

A small group of judges began talking recall, and the discord went public. Thomas held press conferences, went on television, and the Sentinel joined in the fray, publishing impassioned stories in her defense. The recall talk died.

“People were afraid, truly afraid to confront her . . . because of a reputation, right or wrong, of vindictiveness . . .,” one judge said. “She probably came on the court with more political power than probably any of the other judges.”

Turned Into ‘Lynching’

Thomas’ allies on the court remained steadfast, blaming the brouhaha on judges who resented Thomas’ quick trip to the top. Several suggested the discontent began with Simmons McBeth and their rivalry over Jim McBeth. But then, fueled by racism and sexism, they say, it turned into what one of them labeled a “lynching.”

“I just know there was a group of people who were very jealous, envious . . .,” said Washington, her longtime friend. “She was just moving too fast.”

The recall move was revived. Certain she would prevail, Thomas doggedly fought back but failed to heed the advice of the more seasoned judges and her political allies. When a Court of Appeal justice attempted to mediate, Thomas would not participate.

Ten judges met early in June, 1986, and that group, including three blacks and several women--Cooper and Simmons McBeth among them--became the core of the anti-Thomas campaign. The animosity escalated. Thomas called some of her colleagues racists, and she threatened to sue if removed from her post.

Meanwhile, she continued to arrive at the courthouse late and, to hear some say it, acted inappropriately on the bench. About this time, the Los Angeles County Bar Assn. rated her “not qualified” for a Superior Court post.

“She wasn’t professional,” said one judge who observed Thomas at work. “I remember her clapping her hands when there was a settlement. . . . The way she would exclaim her glee was not very judgelike.”

On June 25, 57 judges voted to oust Thomas. Only 13 wanted to keep her on as presiding judge.

“There were probably some judges who may have resented her as a woman, some as a black, some for being young, some for being aggressive,” said Municipal Judge Alban I. Niles, one of the four blacks who opposed her. “But in the long run . . . any objective person could come in here and say she was removed because of the job she did.”

Mystified by the sudden rush of hard luck, Thomas pressed on with her Superior Court campaign.

As always, she moved at a breathless pace. By day, she would field 50 or 60 phone calls to a point “where her answering machine was always breaking down,” best friend Washington recounted. By night, there were half a dozen drop-ins at civic groups, then a round of cocktail parties and private clubs like Tramps and Pips, where, another close friend said, she “could rock ‘n’ roll with the best of them.”

‘6, 7 Nights a Week’

“We’re talking six, seven nights a week here, all of her adult life, since we’ve been hooked up,” Washington said.

Thomas was so fun-loving “you would never believe she’s a judge . . .,” said blues singer Linda Hopkins, another Thomas intimate.

Living with her widowed mother in a brown-trimmed two-story house near Hancock Park, Thomas remained the dutiful daughter.

Nearing 50 when Thomas was born, the aging woman suffered through bouts of heart trouble and repeated hospitalizations. The strain on Thomas, under siege in the courthouse, was intensified when her mother’s condition worsened several times.

That November, Thomas lost the Superior Court race, receiving only 35% of the vote. Things went from bad to worse.

“Here’s a girl who was basically a straight-A student all her life, who never knew what rejection was, never knew what failure was until she decided to run for Superior Court,” Washington said. “. . . After the election, I went over there and had to pull her out of bed. All she was saying, ‘It isn’t fair; it’s not fair.’ ”

Pivotal Loss

Attorney Geraldine Green, a Thomas friend since her Arco days, said the loss was pivotal.

“Once she lost the race, other people, other than judges, sort of joined the lynch mob. . . . Their attitude was, this is somebody who is in disfavor,” Green said.

Her career in chaos, Thomas focused on her private life and a new romantic interest. He was Donald Ware, a never-married cardiologist who admired her “fighting spirit.” It seemed the perfect match, and after only a few months, Ware bought her a 4-carat diamond engagement ring.

The pair planned a lavish May wedding, complete with 40 attendants, the bridesmaids garbed in lilac, the ushers in top hats and tails. The wedding party rode in a motorcade of Rolls-Royces, stretch limousines and vintage automobiles, and there were four soloists including Thelma Houston, Linda Hopkins and Scherrie Payne.

Thomas, wearing a sweeping lace and silk gown, was a “picture of beauty,” gushed the Sentinel, which devoted more than a page to the event. Her 38-year-old groom, wearing a white satin top hat and tails, beamed. After the nuptials, about 1,000 guests attended a reception at the Four Seasons Hotel in Beverly Hills, where they feasted on a five-tiered wedding cake iced in lavender and white.

“In the storybook, you marry your Prince Charming,” said attorney Cochran. “That’s how she sees things, in a storybook manner.”

There was only one glitch in the fairy tale scenario. The wedding wasn’t legal. The couple weren’t married.

They had no valid marriage license, and for that Ware blames Thomas. Thomas blames Ware.

The Rev. E. V. Hill, who performed the ceremony, knew of the oversight but went ahead anyway “because I had a complete packed house waiting on a wedding.”

Before finishing the paper work, the couple left on an around-the-world honeymoon. Ware claims that during an argument over money his bride threw a tantrum in a lobby of the deluxe Cipriani Hotel in Venice.

“She got down on the floor. She was kicking and screaming, banging her head on the wall and throwing her arms,” Ware said. “I’m trying to hold her, I’m trying to stop her from hurting herself, but she went on and on.” Drawn by the spectacle, the hotel manager called a doctor to inject Thomas with a tranquilizer, Ware recounted.

Another Version

Thomas’ friends give another version of the incident. A physician was summoned to calm Thomas only after Ware struck her, Washington said.

“She was upset because he beat her up,” Washington said. “He jumped on her. He strangled her. . . . The doctor had to be called in.”

Ware denies that he struck Thomas.

In all, the honeymoon trip lasted three weeks, the volcanic “marriage” about four.

“The girl wanted everything, my money and my income,” Ware said afterward. “Our personal life has been a tragedy. She’s got a lot of problems and wanted to give me problems.”

The state Commission on Judicial Performance, meanwhile, had launched an investigation of Thomas’ courtroom conduct, an inquiry that later encompassed the rumors about drug use. That confidential probe has not been concluded. Prosecutors who staffed her courtroom were asked to keep tabs on her work schedule and note other relevant information.

Thomas continued arriving late, took lunch breaks late and often kept lawyers and witnesses working into the evening. She was, as one judge said, “two hours out of sync with the rest of the world.”

George W. Trammell, who succeeded Thomas as presiding judge, said a review showed her “productivity was within the bounds of reason.” But numerous prosecutors and defense attorneys complained that her work schedule created havoc.

The rumors about drugs, whispered among court insiders until that point, surfaced publicly in conversations between judges and journalists.

“I think the thing just started on its own inertia . . .,” one judge said. “I think it was more people trying to rationalize bizarre behavior.”

Despite the problems, Thomas kept working and, on her last morning, was hearing a gang-related murder case when friends say she simply reached her limit.

Her emotional collapse apparently was triggered when a deputy public defender challenged her objectivity. Thomas retreated to her chambers to check some points of law. She never returned to the courtroom.

“I put her to bed, and I made her some homemade chicken soup . . .,” Washington said. “She cried the whole time.”

Admitted to a hospital, Thomas stayed for several weeks. With Thomas unable to speak on her own behalf, Cochran held a press conference to rebut the drug allegations.

“She was totally stressed out, from the standpoint of her ability to cope,” Cochran explained. In the months that followed, Thomas was in and out of hospitals.

“She has periods of deep depression,” said attorney Green, who screens phone calls for Thomas. “Her whole personality has changed. She used to be a bubbly, effervescent person. She’s much quieter now, withdrawn.”

Although Thomas originally planned to seek reelection to the Municipal Court, she announced through Cochran last month that she was unable to proceed. Hearings on her request for a disability pension are pending.

Time at Home

In the meantime, she spends much of her time at home with her mother. She talks daily with close friends like Washington and occasionally ventures out to visit others or attend a church service. Unable to drive, she usually is chauffeured by companions.

“She wants to get her strength back,” said Clarence Harris, her friend and financial adviser. “She’s very tired right now, needs time to herself.”

Harris and others say it is far too soon to speculate about the years ahead. Most of them are too consumed with their own “what ifs” when it comes to Thomas.

“Some of us who have stood on the sidelines have to bear some responsibility for what has happened to her,” said Mary Henry, a friend of 10 years. “Maybe some of us should have made a little more noise.”

For now, doctors say, Thomas should not even consider a return to law, much less to the courts.

“I think right now the doctors are saying not in the near future,” Green said. “ . . . I’m not a doctor, but my personal view would be never.”