Judge Experienced in Abuse Cases Will Run Buckey Retrial

Superior Court Judge Stanley M. Weisberg, 46, a former deputy district attorney and dependency court judge experienced in dealing with child abuse cases, was named Monday to preside at the retrial of McMartin Pre-School molestation defendant Ray Buckey.

“He is ready to start March 9,” said Judge Gary Klausner, supervising judge of the Los Angeles Superior Court’s central criminal division, in announcing the reassignment. He ordered both sides to meet for a “status conference” with Weisberg on Wednesday.

The March trial date had been set by Judge William Pounders, who heard the record-setting 2 1/2-year trial of Buckey and his mother, Peggy McMartin Buckey, in which they were acquitted of 52 counts of molestation and conspiracy last month. However, the jury deadlocked on 13 counts, involving five children, against Ray Buckey, and he is being retried on those counts.

Klausner removed Pounders from the case last week on the recommendation of Superior Court Judge Michael Hoff, who read arguments from the defense and Pounders’ reply. Hoff found no evidence that Pounders was biased against either Buckey or his attorney, but said he felt that Pounders’ post-trial television appearances could present problems in selecting a new jury.

“The judge knows what he said and what he meant by his remarks, but would be placed in the impossible position of interpreting what the prospective juror thought about those remarks and perhaps the judge himself,” Hoff found.

Defense attorney Danny Davis said Monday that he has “personal plans” that may delay the trial, and that, while a change of venue is “unlikely,” jury selection could be time-consuming.

“I’m troubled,” he said, by the possibility that prosecutors may be creating “a false event,” in the form of the retrial, for political reasons.

(Dist. Atty. Ira Reiner is a candidate for state attorney general).

“I sense the (post-trial) publicity developed a kind of heated energy,” Davis said, noting that only a handful of counts remain and that he believes that “no child witness is committed and available to go forward at this time.”

Davis said Reiner had better “be certain he is going to best me at trial.”

The defense attorney said he does not know much about Weisberg.

“The trial is a tar baby for anyone” who touches it, Davis said. “I hope he’ll bring a measure of objectivity and fairness” to the proceedings.

Deputy Dist. Attys. Joe Martinez and Pamela Ferrero, the two new prosecutors, made no comment on the selection of Weisberg.

The son of a sheet metal worker, Weisberg was born in East Los Angeles and attended law school at UCLA.

He spent 18 years as a Los Angeles County prosecutor, handling such high-profile cases as the successful prosecution of Marvin Pancoast for murder in the slaying of Vicky Morgan, the mistress of business tycoon Alfred Bloomingdale.

He was appointed to the Municipal Court bench by Gov. George Deukmejian in 1986, and elevated to the Superior Court in 1988. He is considered intellectual and efficient.

A deputy county counsel who appeared before him during his one-year stint in the juvenile division remembers Weisberg as “compassionate.”

“He is not a demonstrative man, but he had a lot of sympathy for children whose lot in life is pretty grim,” she said. “He was willing to listen to kids and give them credibility and what they needed. He genuinely tried to help out children.”

Weisberg married Superior Court Judge Jacqueline Levit Weisberg in 1985.