Reporter’s Notebook : Judge Presiding at Kraft Trial Was Also the Court Jester

When word spread through the courthouse in Santa Ana that Superior Court Judge Donald A. McCartin would preside over the Randy Steven Kraft serial murder trial, both prosecutors and defense lawyers were delighted.

Prosecutors believed that McCartin would insist that the case, stalled in years of delays, finally get moving. Defense lawyers simply thought he would liven up the proceedings.

They haven’t been disappointed.

The 54-year-old judge, who has specialized in death penalty cases in recent years, scattered a mixture of humor, wit, anger and friendliness at both sides of the counsel table during the 9-month trial, the first phase of which ended Friday. Kraft’s lawyers can burn at the judge’s decisions one minute and then join the laughter at his one-liners the next.

A few McCartin gems during the trial:

On a day when television news crews showed up: “Would you guys please get my name right? It’s McCartin, not McMartin. I don’t go around molesting little children.”

The judge deadpanned to the jurors that during their deliberations they would be sequestered at the “Bates Motel,” which brought laughter from all except the one or two who had never watched any of the “Psycho” movies.

During closing arguments, Kraft lawyer James G. Merwin told jurors that “MC HB Tattoo” on a list found in Kraft’s car did not refer to one of the victims, a Marine. “MC” did not have to mean Marine Corps, Merwin said, adding, “How about ‘Midway City’?”

“How about ‘McCartin’?” the judge interjected. The interruption surprised everyone, but even the lawyers joined the jurors’ laughter.

A favorite McCartin target during the trial was Deputy Dist. Atty. Bryan F. Brown. During one heated debate between Brown and defense lawyers, McCartin quipped: “I have to be fair to the defense. But I don’t have to be fair to you, Mr. Brown.”

The judge had fun with the defense too. When he complained how slow the defense was moving along, Kraft attorney C. Thomas McDonald responded that he was at work most mornings at 5 a.m. during the trial. One day after that, when McCartin came into the courtroom and McDonald was not yet there, the judge wryly told the others: “I know he’s here somewhere. He’s been here since 5 a.m.”

McCartin readily admits he wants cases to move quickly, and he has shown irritation with both sides about the slow pace.

When Brown told jurors in closing arguments that he wanted to mention something that might be only marginally important, McCartin interjected: “Then let’s move on to something else, Mr. Brown.”

The judge early in the trial did not enjoy having Brown itemize for jurors all the contents of the glove box of Kraft’s car. The judge called it “a pile of garbage” and warned the lawyers not to waste the court’s time like that again.

In a lighter tone, when Brown ran out of witnesses 30 minutes early one day, the judge told the lawyers: “I want those witnesses lined up out there three deep from now on, gentlemen.”

But it was the defense with whom the judge had argued the most over the slow pace. When Merwin was out sick and McDonald did not want to cross-examine a witness Merwin was supposed to handle, the judge said angrily: “This is ridiculous. I could cross-examine this witness. . . . A freshman law student could cross-examine this witness.”

The lawyers were not sure if he was only half-kidding when the judge refused to interrupt closing arguments for a brief hearing requested by the defense and said: “I hate all lawyers. I don’t have a friend among any one of you. Now let’s get on with it, gentlemen, and bring the jurors back in.”

Whether they agree with the judge’s rulings, most people in his courtroom during the trial have come to admire many qualities about him. For example, he has sat through most of the trial in excruciating pain, wearing a brace because of a back injury.

And when the lawyers needed a brief break in the trial to schedule witnesses, McCartin asked court officials to send him a short trial to hear. The judge could have sat in his chambers during the break and drawn no criticism. The same thing happened after Kraft’s jury began deliberating: The judge has since heard two other cases when no one expected it.

He showed compassion for the defense by allowing Kraft’s father, confined to a wheelchair, to visit his son in the holding cell just outside the courtroom. And while McCartin likes to pick on the prosecutor, Brown is aware that most of the judge’s decisions have allowed him to put on the case he wanted.

If the length of the trial, which began last July, has been a strain on the judge, he doesn’t let it show. When the jurors were deliberating on a Saturday, a Times reporter called the courtroom to ask how things were going. The judge got on the phone and complained:

“I want to go in the jury room and help them out, but Mitch (the bailiff) won’t let me.”