Judge James Franks Is Discovered Dead in Apparent Suicide

Superior Court Judge James Reginald Franks II, who presided over the 1983 trial of Charles Rothenberg, who had set his son on fire, was found dead Wednesday in a wooded area of Trabuco Canyon. He had apparently shot himself.

Franks, 48, had recently taken a leave of absence for illness.

Orange County Sheriff’s Department Lt. Richard J. Olson said the judge’s body was found about 3:45 p.m. near where Trabuco Creek crosses Trabuco Canyon Road. A handgun was found at the scene and Franks’ car was parked about 100 yards away on a dirt road, Olson said.

Autopsy Today

Olson said a preliminary investigation indicates that Franks died of a self-inflicted gunshot wound. An autopsy was scheduled for today.

Franks, who was assigned to Superior Court in Santa Ana, had been presiding over the trial of Thomas Maniscalco, a lawyer charged with masterminding the 1980 triple murder of a fellow Hessian biker and the biker’s girlfriend and bodyguard.

But Franks lost a lot of weight during the pretrial motions phase and stepped down during jury selection last month to go on paid sick leave, reportedly because of emphysema.

Phillip E. Cox, who is presiding judge of the Orange County Superior Court and had known Franks for 10 years, said that when he telephoned Franks at home in Coto de Caza on Tuesday to see how he was doing, the jurist seemed dejected.

“He wasn’t the jovial, ‘yeah-I-can-do-this-that-and-the-other-thing’ kind of guy that he usually was,” Cox said. “I felt he was depressed. He was always one of the troops, you know, eager to get going and do his job.

“But this wasn’t the Jim Franks I knew.”

But Cox said he knew of no family problems in the Franks household, adding, “He loves his wife.”

Sheriff’s Department Lt. William Francis said a search for Franks began after his wife summoned sheriff’s deputies to her home Wednesday to file a missing-persons report on her husband. It was not immediately known how long Franks had been gone before his wife called authorities.

“This just doesn’t make any sense to me,” Orange County Dist. Atty. Cecil Hicks said late Wednesday. “I knew him and respected him. He was a conscientious, hard-working sort of guy. He was very friendly and cordial.”

Hicks said the news stunned him, coming as it did only 15 months after Municipal Judge Sidney Maleck, 64, shot himself to death in Fullerton. Maleck, who suffered from diabetes and high blood pressure, had been depressed over lawsuits relating to his former duties as a city attorney in El Monte as well as his failing health.

‘Total Gentleman’

Deputy Dist. Atty. Richard M. King, one of two prosecutors on the Maniscalco case, said Franks was “a total gentleman and totally fair. I never saw him lose his temper. But at the same time, he was firm in his rulings.”

Franks sentenced Charles Rothenberg to 13 years in prison in July, 1983, for pouring kerosene over his 6-year-old son and setting him on fire. He told Rothenberg that the sentence was “far too low” for what he had done, but that he was limited to 13 years under the law. His manner was formal in court, but later, in his chambers, he wept when shown pictures of the disfigured boy.

Cox described Franks as “an excellent judge who could try any kind of case.

“He was a good friend to us all,” Cox said. “It’s a tremendous loss to all of us.”

Franks, described by peers as dedicated and competent, had been a judge in Municipal Court in Fullerton for only four months when Gov. Edmund G. Brown Jr. named him to the Superior Court post in November, 1982.

Before taking the bench, he had served as a deputy public defender in Orange County, where he rose to become head of the Fullerton branch office, and in Los Angeles County. He had also been in private practice in Santa Ana.

Franks received his law degree from UCLA.

He leaves his wife, Holly, and two teen-age children.