Judge Ignores Reiner Plea for Long Drug Sentences

The Los Angeles County district attorney’s office is locked in a battle with a respected Compton judge who is among the few jurists in the county not cooperating with Ira Reiner’s plea for mandatory, minimum 180-day sentences for drug offenses.

For the past three weeks, prosecutors have been refusing to send minor drug-sale and possession cases to Judge Arthur H. Jean, the judge whose mission is to cut the massive backlog of cases that has plagued the Compton Superior Courthouse for years.

Since becoming the judge who manages the master calender in the Compton court last year, Jean has been willing to settle minor drug cases with 90-day sentences to clear the court for trials of more serious crimes.

On orders of Chief Deputy Dist. Atty. Gilbert I. Garcetti, prosecutors will continue to use the “exceedingly rare” ploy of filing “affidavits of prejudice” against the judge every time a minor drug case is assigned to him. Under the little-used state law, prosecutors and defense attorneys alike have a once-per-case right to remove a judge.

In a similar action last August, Reiner refused to allow Glendale Court Commissioner Daniel Calabro to hear cases because of allegedly racist remarks made in his courtroom.

Calabro was cleared of any wrongdoing.

‘No Hesitation’

Garcetti, who issued the order against Jean, said he “has no hesitation to take any other cases” to the judge, whom he described as “one of the premier judges in Los Angeles County.” But, he said in an interview, “until this is resolved, (Jean) won’t be hearing any drug cases.”

Jean is just as adamant.

“I am not going to permit my office to be threatened and bullied . . . I cannot and will not do that,” said Jean, a former prosecutor, in an interview.

Jean said that--in Compton at least--the 180-day policy is clogging the court with trials that the district attorney is, for the most part, losing, and it is forcing prosecutions of murder, rape, grand theft and other felonies to be continued time and again.

Reiner set his policy of seeking minimum 180-day sentences for all drug offenders on Aug. 18, 1986. Since then, Garcetti said, about 90% of all those convicted have received the minimum sentence. At one point, 95% of all offenders got the sentence, he said, though lately the rate has fallen to the level of 85% to 87%--perhaps in part due to Jean’s settlements.

“As a matter of principle and as a matter of theory that policy of the district attorney’s office is perfectly reasonable, Jean said. “But, as applied here in Compton, it is not a reasonable position. And the reason it is not reasonable (is that) the number of cases that we have here is overwhelming.”

The Compton court, with 10 judges, gets about 200 murder cases a year and 250 to 325 new felony cases each month, Jean said. “We are the murder capital of the county,” he said.

With 180-day sentences for minor drug violations, many more defendants would elect to go to trial, rather than settling early for a reduced 90-sentence, Jean said.

That point is backed up by public defenders who work the Compton courthouse.

‘Set Policy’

“With a set policy of 180 days, there would be a lot more trials,” said Loren Mandel, head deputy public defender in the Compton office. “And we have been quite successful in winning cases” at trial, Mandel said.

Jean said that in the 28 minor drug possession and sales cases argued in the Compton court from September to April, the district attorney won just six. The others ended in acquittal or hung juries, or were dismissed by judges when key witnesses could not be found to testify.

Before Jean’s 90-day policy began last year, upward of 60% of the daily trials were for drug offenses, Mandel said. That rate has been slashed significantly he said, and on Monday only one of eight scheduled trials was for a drug case. The others were for rape, robbery, murder and grand theft.

And Mandel defended Jean as a tough judge, despite his policy of settling the minor drug cases.

“He is not giving away the courthouse,” Mandel said.

“I think drug usage is tearing apart the community,” Jean said, “but so is murder, rape, robbery, grand theft and child abuse.”

Garcetti and Jean agree on one point: More judges and court personnel are necessary. The key to their disagreement is how to distribute the limited resources they do have.

The supervising judge of the Compton court, Judge Robert LaFont, could not be reached Monday.

But Mandel said that he believes the other judges in Compton appreciate what Jean has done to clean out the calendar and will probably take the same tack as Jean and settle the cases fast.