Public Defender’s Office Ends 1st Boycott of Judge : The law: Attorneys took the action after two officers, acting on orders of Raymond D. Mireles, dragged a lawyer into his courtroom.

The Los Angeles County public defender’s office has quietly reversed an officewide boycott of a Van Nuys Superior Court judge whose joking order prompted two Los Angeles police officers to drag a deputy public defender into his courtroom.

For the first time in nine months, attorneys from the public defender’s office are trying cases before Judge Raymond D. Mireles, ending a boycott that was unprecedented in the office’s 76-year history.

“It’s time to forgive and forget,” said William D. Weiss, head of the Van Nuys branch of the office. “We’ve made our point. We will not have judges treat our attorneys badly. It’s time to make peace.”

“I’ve never been at war with anyone,” said Mireles, who since December has only been assigned cases in which defendants are represented by private lawyers or the county-funded Alternate Defense Counsel because of the boycott.

Mireles earned the office’s emnity on Nov. 6, 1989, by asking two Los Angeles police officers appearing as witnesses in a drug case to bring Deputy Public Defender Howard C. Waco, the defendant’s attorney, into his courtroom.

“Bring me a piece” or “body part” of Waco, Mireles said, and the officers promptly hauled the veteran defender out of another judge’s court and hurled him into Mireles’ courtroom.

Mireles insisted that he did not mean his request to be taken literally but the public defender’s office tried to force his reassignment by conducting the boycott. Instead, judicial officials reassigned Mireles’ caseload so that public defenders would not appear before him.

The Commission on Judicial Performance, which monitors judicial conduct, publicly rebuked Mireles in June for his role in the incident.

The end to the boycott apparently came about casually at the end of September with a request from Judge Judith Meisels Ashmann, who assigns pending criminal cases in Van Nuys Superior Court.

Ashmann said she told Weiss it would make her job easier to “have a full complement of judges to send cases” and asked if the office’s attorneys would appear before Mireles when other courtrooms are full.

Before consenting, Weiss said, he discussed the request with Los Angeles County Public Defender Wilbur F. Littlefield and the 11 felony attorneys who regularly appear in Van Nuys Superior Court.

In late September, Mireles presided over a drug case in which the defendant was represented by a deputy public defender. Another drug defendant with a deputy public defender is scheduled for trial before Mireles on Friday.

Before the breach in relations, two deputy public defenders were assigned full time to Mireles’ court, which Ashmann said “would seem like a logical step.” Weiss said that may be possible, adding: “I think what is happening is a nice way of re-establishing a relationship.”

Waco, who has since been reassigned to the San Fernando branch of the public defender’s office, could not be reached for comment Tuesday.