Local Elections : Heated Contest in Malibu Heads Slate of Municipal Judgeship Races

A heated and often bitter campaign for judge of the Malibu Municipal Court heads a slate of Westside Municipal Court races on the June 7 primary ballot.

In Los Angeles County, only eight of the 91 races for Municipal Court judge feature challenges to incumbents. Four of those are on the Westside.

The Malibu race pits Judge Lawrence J. Mira against challenger Raymond David, an attorney who has attacked Mira’s administration of the court and criticized his firing of a longtime court commissioner last year.

Mira, in turn, has charged David with running a “deceptive and grimy” campaign. Earlier this year, Mira sought a court order to force David to change his ballot designation from arbitration judge to arbitrator because David has not served as a judge. Still, Mira said, David continues to hand out cards in his district that show the challenger pictured in a judicial robe.

“He (David) has been very willing to distort the facts,” said Mira, 45, who was appointed to the bench by Gov. George Deukmejian in 1986. “His campaign has been very misleading. I believe it’s fair to say that he has a very cavalier attitude about following the law.”

David said the ballot-designation tussle was a matter of semantics and denied that his campaign has been deceptive. He called Mira’s handling of the Malibu court “unacceptable,” contending that a backlog of civil cases and limited working hours in the Calabasas courthouse have placed an undue hardship on San Fernando Valley residents and attorneys in the judicial district, which includes Topanga, Agoura, Agoura Hills, Westlake Village, Hidden Hills, Calabasas and part of Chatsworth.

“You can’t get justice in a clogged courthouse,” said David, 55, who has practiced as an attorney for 26 years. “Either you can manage it or you can’t. It’s not a case of needing more judges, but administering it better.”

The Los Angeles County Bar Assn. recently ranked Mira “well qualified.” David was ranked “not qualified,” which he said was an indication of the bar’s resentment over his running against an incumbent judge. Mira said the ranking reflected David’s lack of credentials. The bar association bases its rankings on extensive analysis and interviews with the candidates in which a panel of attorneys assesses integrity, judgment, intellectual capacity, fairness, experience, knowledge of the law, general reputation in the community and judicial temperament.

Municipal judges earn $77,409 annually and handle misdemeanor trials, preliminary hearings in felony cases, arraignments for misdemeanor and felony arrests, and civil and small claims cases. They are elected to six-year terms.

Mira, a criminal-law specialist who served nine years as a deputy district attorney and nine years in private practice, is being endorsed by retired Malibu Municipal Judge John Merrick, who headed the court for 22 years. David, a member of the American Arbitration Assn.’s national panel of arbitrators, has been endorsed by several attorney groups in the San Fernando Valley.

One of the key issues in the campaign focuses on Mira’s firing of Commissioner Richard L. Brand, a 13-year veteran of the court and a longtime friend of David’s, and replacing him with former Deputy Dist. Atty. Robert H. McIntosh.

David said Brand’s dismissal was “a waste of judicial talent.” Mira, noting that the court commissioner serves at the behest of the judge, said Brand was dismissed “after it got to a point where he wasn’t pulling in the same direction as I was. It was hurting the whole court system.”

Brand is actively campaigning for David, but said he had no intention of returning as court commissioner if David wins the election.

The challenger has spent the past six months hammering away at Mira’s limited use of the Calabasas courthouse, which is used primarily for small claims and traffic cases. Criminal cases involving jailed defendants have been transferred to the Malibu court, which David contends creates a great burden on attorneys in the San Fernando Valley who must travel all the way out to the coastal community for often brief appearances. Mira said the Calabasas facility is used on a limited basis because of inadequate security.

However, if elected, David said he would assign a commissioner full-time to Calabasas to handle cases and allow attorneys to file court documents there.

Mira said the way he would handle the workload is by enforcing mandatory arbitration in civil cases, to free himself and Commissioner McIntosh for other matters.

“This is case where some guy is making a lot of allegations because it’s the only tactic he can use,” Mira said. “He’s running a negative campaign because he couldn’t win by running on his qualifications.”

The Malibu court battle is by far the most rancorous of the Westside judicial races, but livelier-than-usual campaigns are being waged in Beverly Hills, Hollywood and Culver City.

In the Beverly Hills Municipal Court race, Presiding Judge Judith O. Stein received a lower rating from the Los Angeles County Bar Assn. than her opponent, 45-year-old West Hollywood attorney Brian S. Braff.

In a three-tier rating system with “not qualified” being the lowest, Stein was ranked “qualified,” while Braff received the highest rating, “well-qualified.” Stein, 51, is one of four Municipal Court judges in Los Angeles County who received lower bar association ratings than their challengers.

Stein, a conservative appointed by Gov. George Deukemjian in 1986, cites qualifications including 25 years of legal and judicial experience as a prosecutor, civil attorney and Superior Court arbitrator. She has received endorsements from Deukmejian, state Sen. Ed Davis (R-Valencia), Beverly Hills Mayor Robert Tanenbaum, Los Angeles County Sheriff Sherman Block and Howard Davis, president of the Beverly Hills Police Officers Assn.

Braff’s campaign brochure proclaims endorsements from powerful Democrats, including Reps. Henry A. Waxman of Los Angeles and Howard L. Berman of Panorama City, state Sen. Herschel Rosenthal of Los Angeles and Assemblymen Terry B. Friedman of Tarzana and Burt Margolin of Los Angeles, as well West Hollywood and Beverly Hills City Council members.

In a telephone interview Wednesday, Waxman said it is not unusual for congressmen to make endorsements in local races, but he said he usually does not make endorsements against incumbent judges. He said he decided to endorse Braff against Stein because he was convinced by local attorneys that she has “serious flaws” as a judge.

Braff in his campaign has criticized some of Stein’s rulings and said she “has no extensive background in this community.”

Stein defended her record and cited local involvements, including the establishment of a court intern program at Beverly Hills High School and the creation of the Beverly Hills-West Hollywood Victim/Witness Assistance Program.

Braff disputed reports that the nonpartisan judge’s race has turned into a contest along party lines. “We have tried to be careful not to do that,” he said, adding that his campaign literature did not state the Democratic Party affiliations of some of the elected officials who endorsed him.

Stein said that although she is a Republican with endorsements from her party’s officials, she also has the support of a number of Democratic officials and civic leaders, including former Gov. Edmund G. (Pat) Brown, Los Angeles County Supervisor Ed Edelman and state Senate President Pro Tem David Roberti of Los Angeles. She blamed Braff for bringing political parties into the race and said the impartiality of the judiciary must be preserved. “It is disastrous to make it a political kind of race,” she said.

In Hollywood, Los Angeles Municipal Judge Michael Nash is being challenged by Los Angeles attorney Enda Thomas Brennan, a former public defender. The bar association has rated Nash, who was appointed in 1985, as “not qualified,” stating that he lacks the proper judicial temperament. Brennan, 32, was rated “qualified.”

Nash, 39, who has been tough on prostitutes and other criminals, said he is being targeted by lawyers for what he calls his “tough but effective” approach to dispensing justice. He said attorneys, particularly public defenders, were angered by his strict adherence to the law on granting continuances and issuing bench warrants and said his “not qualified” rating from the bar association could be a backlash from attorneys.

Nash said he has ruffled the feathers of defense lawyers by sentencing prostitutes to probation, fines and jail time rather than just imposing small fines.

Brennan accuses Nash of “coercing guilty pleas from often-times innocent members of the public.” In an interview, he cited cases in which Nash sent defendants to jail when they were late for court appearances, in one case when a defendant was delayed by being directed to the wrong courtroom. He said that in another case Nash refused to allow a first-time drug-paraphernalia defendant the usual option of a diversion-rehabilitation program and offered the diversion program only if the defendant agreed to plead guilty.

Nash defended his judicial actions, saying his rigorous application of the law has reduced court backlogs and dramatically alleviated Hollywood’s chronic problem with prostitution.

For the Culver City Municipal Court, Judge Bert Glennon Jr. is being challenged by attorney Jacqueline Powell. Glennon, 49, was appointed to the bench in 1986 and is rated “well qualified.” Powell, 54, was rated “not qualified” by the bar association, which cited a lack of judicial temperament.

Powell, a resident and attorney of Culver City, has raised the issue of Glennon’s residency in Tarzana, while Glennon has listed local endorsements that include members of the Culver City Council and Culver City Board of Education.