Robert Aguilar : Controversy Has Dogged Judge Much of Career

Federal Judge Robert P. Aguilar always has been something of a maverick and, like all mavericks, his actions often have set tongues wagging.

Aguilar’s friendships and financial dealings with felons led largely to his racketeering indictment on Tuesday. But even before these relationships drew the FBI’s attention, Aguilar had left controversy in his wake.

President Jimmy Carter appointed Aguilar to the U.S. District Court in San Jose in 1980, at the request of Sen. Alan Cranston (D-Calif.). The Senate confirmed the choice even though the American Bar Assn.’s Committee on the Judiciary was split on the choice.

A majority of the ABA committee members rated him “qualified” and a minority deemed him “not qualified.” Most nominees receive ratings of “well qualified.”

“We were very concerned that there were no Hispanic district court judges at the time and he appeared qualified,” said lawyer Robert Gnaizda of Public Advocates in San Francisco, a member of another committee, this one set up to help Cranston find judicial candidates.

Search for Minorities

At the time, Cranston and Carter were seeking qualified minorities and women to fill openings on the federal bench. Gnaizda said Aguilar stood out largely because few Latinos applied for the coveted jobs.

“He was not the most qualified person (to apply). But he was as qualified as many of the white males sitting as federal judges in California,” Gnaizda added.

Gnaizda said he recalls receiving no political pressure on Aguilar’s behalf, although the judge is a friend of Rep. Don Edwards (D-San Jose).

In an interview, Edwards said Aguilar had helped in many of his campaigns. Aguilar also assisted one of Edwards’ sons to study for the Bar examination, and from 1976 until 1978 was a law partner of another of the congressman’s sons, Leonard, who now is a Santa Clara County Superior Court judge.

“He is a wonderful judge,” Rep. Edwards declared. “He is hard-hitting, a judge of great integrity. All of these rumors are very painful to me. He has always had a wonderful reputation.”

The congressman, who spoke on Aguilar’s behalf in the judge’s confirmation hearing, said in an interview last week that he supported Aguilar’s appointment because he was an “outstanding role model,” someone who rose from “humble beginnings” to attain a lifetime appointment to the federal bench.

Edwards described Aguilar as a “gregarious, interesting, liberal person who cares about poor people, the disabled, working men and women.”

“He cares about the difficulties of Hispanics in America. He is someone I admire very much,” the congressman said.

Edwards also said that because of his friendship with Aguilar, he will recuse himself from any impeachment proceedings against the judge.

But for the indictment, Aguilar’s rise to the federal bench indeed could be considered inspirational. Born in Madera, Calif., one of 11 children, he has said his proudest moment was when he administered the oath of citizenship to his father, a Mexican immigrant who raised his family in the Contra Costa County town of Pittsburg and in the Central Valley.

Aguilar received his undergraduate degree from UC Berkeley. He worked as a laborer, box maker, stock clerk and warehouseman in the middle and late 1950s, while he attended Hastings College of Law in San Francisco.

He did not graduate from law school but did pass the Bar examination and started a law practice in 1960. He worked in firms of two or three attorneys, including one of his two former wives, who later became a judge in Santa Clara County.

“I had a completely general practice,” Aguilar said in his application to become a federal judge. “I represented mostly low-income people. Much of my work was for Spanish-speaking clientele, although I did represent a number of business persons.”

Aguilar never reported income of more than $104,000 in the middle and late 1970s, and said in the application that between 1975 and 1979 he never billed any single client more than $5,000.

In 1979, then Gov. Edmund G. Brown Jr. named Aguilar to the Superior Court in Santa Clara County. He served less than a year when he was nominated to the federal bench.

First, however, he had a bit of political business to take care of. He remained a candidate for the Santa Clara County judgeship even after he was confirmed to the federal bench.

By winning the election and then stepping aside, he could ensure that Brown could name his successor. Such blatant political maneuvering is frowned upon by federal jurists, most of whom appear to become almost monastic after ascending to the lifetime jobs, but Aguilar ran for reelection and won.

Since becoming a federal judge, Aguilar has been the target of a murder plot by Colombian drug smugglers, of allegations that he favored a Silicon Valley computer giant because it employs his son, and of a pending palimony suit.

He has ruled that the Immigration and Naturalization Service could not bar immigrants solely because they are homosexuals, and that the constitutional right against warrantless searches required that state and federal drug agents limit aerial surveillance in search of marijuana in Northern California.

He leaves undone perhaps his most important case, a sweeping civil rights suit challenging INS sweeps of factories in search of illegal aliens. Several Mexican nationals testified about being abused by INS agents. During the trial, Aguilar occasionally would correct the words of Spanish-language interpreters.