Local News in Brief : No ‘Offensive Behavior’

The California Bar has found no “sufficient factual basis” for allegations that Dist. Atty. Ira Reiner engaged in “offensive behavior” last year when he barred a Glendale Municipal Court commissioner from hearing criminal cases, it was announced Tuesday.

Spokeswoman Anne Charles said the state Bar’s office of investigations also concluded that there is no basis for disciplining the commissioner, Daniel F. Calabro, who came under fire from Reiner for uttering a racial slur from the bench.

Reiner was widely criticized when he announced last Aug. 25 that he would no longer allow prosecutors to appear before Calabro. The district attorney cited a remark made by Calabro during a 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 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 apologized for using the epithet but said he had intended to express dismay that this case came up only five days after he handled another matter with racial overtones. After Calabro was cleared of racism by the Los Angeles County Bar Assn. in October, the district attorney reversed himself and agreed to give the commissioner a “second chance.”