Judge Pounders Is Taken Off Buckey’s Retrial : Courts: There is no evidence that he was prejudiced. But concerns about post-trial comments result in the plan to assign the case to a different judge.

Los Angeles Superior Court Judge William R. Pounders, who presided over the record-breaking McMartin Pre-School molestation trial, was barred Wednesday from hearing the retrial of defendant Ray Buckey because of remarks the judge made after Buckey and his mother, Peggy McMartin Buckey, were acquitted last month of 52 counts.

Superior Court Judge Michael Hoff, who evaluated the defense’s claim of bias, said in a written recommendation that, although he found no evidence that Pounders was prejudiced against Buckey or his lawyer, the case should be reassigned to another judge to avoid potential conflicts of interest during jury selection.

“Both the prosecution and the defense would want to know if a prospective juror saw or heard any of the post-trial broadcasts that involved Judge Pounders and if so, what effect, if any, that would have on the prospective juror’s capacity to be impartial,” Hoff wrote.

“Judge Pounders may very well be forced into the position of ruling on a challenge for cause by either the prosecution or defense and would, in effect, be ruling on his own actions that were taken during the post-trial publicity.”

Hoff did not specify what Pounders had said that might influence a potential juror.

After Hoff’s recommendation, Judge Gary Klausner, presiding judge of the Superior Court’s central criminal division, announced that he had decided to assign to a different judge Buckey’s March 9 retrial on the 13 counts on which the earlier jury deadlocked. That choice will be announced Monday.

Defense attorney Danny Davis called the ruling “a good decision,” and his client agreed.

“I’m very happy with the ruling,” said Buckey, 31, who is free on his own recognizance. “It concerned me that he (Pounders) had gone public and made a lot of statements people might misinterpret.”

However, he added, “I thought there was justice in the first trial. . . . Now we’re going to go for justice again, for total acquittal, and put this thing to rest finally.”

District attorney’s spokesperson Sandi Gibbons said the prosecution “respects Judge Hoff’s ruling. Our concern is to try to bring this case to trial as soon as possible. We’re ready to go.”

The removal of Pounders could delay the start of the trial, depending on how much preparation time the new judge feels is necessary.

Pounders said afterward that he felt both “relief that I’m finally free” to channel his energies elsewhere, but also “disappointment” that he will not be the judge to take the case to its conclusion.

He said he had appeared on at least 12 news programs after the verdicts because he felt it was important to explain why the trial took nearly three years and to defend the jury against public reaction.

Following the first trial, Pounders made himself available to the local and national media and made the talk show circuit--including “Nightline,” “Oprah Winfrey,” “Geraldo,” “The Today Show,” and “Good Morning America.”

The judge discussed the significance of videotaped interviews with the alleged child victims that the jury, but not the public, saw, and the impact of earlier interviews on the children’s later trial testimony. He also talked repeatedly about the system of justice as one “that is set up to allow guilty people to go free” rather than to risk convicting the innocent.

But the judge maintained that, “I don’t think anything I said would affect the merits of the second trial and I didn’t see any problem in selecting a second jury.”

However, Pounders said the stress and strain of the long trial had left him exhausted. He said he broke a molar while clenching his teeth and often took his frustrations out on his family, rather than allow them to surface in court.

“I was honestly afraid I wouldn’t live through it,” he said. “I never saw a doctor. I didn’t want to know. I had literally committed my life to the case.”

Davis had alleged that Pounders had demonstrated bias during the trial, which Pounders vehemently denied. The defense attorney cited the judge having called him “an ass,” his slashing of the defense witness roster, his exclusion of some evidence, his refusal to pay all defense costs, and his vow to conclude the trial “even if it’s over your dead body” as evidence of prejudice.

But Pounders countered that the defense had consumed the majority of trial time, and had submitted “excessive” or unauthorized claims for financial reimbursement.

After reading written arguments from both sides, Hoff determined that “the papers and videotape submitted by (the defense) and the gross allegations contained therein did not cause me to find Judge Pounders was prejudiced against Mr. Davis or Mr. Buckey in the trial that recently concluded. The 52 ‘not guilty’ verdicts tend to support this view.”

However, he added, while there was “a need to explain the court’s function” to “an irate community,” and that “the judge did just that,” such activities would create a problem in jury selection for both the prosecution and the defense.

The tone of the first trial was frequently hostile and tense. But everyone was smiling Wednesday when Davis and Buckey stopped by Pounders’ courtroom. The judge shook hands with them and wished Buckey “good luck.”