Judge Removed From Custody Case After Making Ethnic Slur

An appeals court has disqualified a judge from a custody case after he called a woman who appeared before him a “Jewish-American princess.”

Orange County Superior Court Judge Robert D. Monarch apologized to Nanci Rosen Carter, and, noting that he too is Jewish, said he did not intend the remark to be derogatory. Monarch denied he had any bias or prejudice against Carter, and refused to step down from the case.

But Carter argued that the judge was clearly biased against her and filed an appeal. In court papers, Carter alleged that Monarch had called her “unusual,” “obsessed,” and “abnormal,” and at one point stated she was “a failure in her first marriage and she would be a failure in her second marriage as well.”

“I felt, I guess, that she was acting like a spoiled brat,” the judge explained Friday.

“How would you like having that person hear your evidence?” Carter said.

The judge’s remarks incensed the National Council of Jewish Women Inc. in Los Angeles, which offered to file a friend-of-the-court brief with the 4th District Court of Appeal. The group’s attorney, Gloria Allred, called the remarks “false, derogatory and damaging,” as well as “sexist and misogynist.”

“I don’t believe that gender bias should be taken lightly, and bias in the courtroom is particularly serious,” Allred said.

In a split decision released Thursday, two justices of the 4th District Court of Appeal sided with Carter.

The opinion by Presiding Justice David G. Sills states that a judge should be disqualified if “the judge believes there is a substantial doubt as to his or her capacity to be impartial, or . . . (if) a person aware of the facts might reasonably entertain a doubt that the judge would be able to be impartial.”

“We can safely say the average man on the street would have a doubt of the trial judge’s impartiality based on his characterization of Rosen as a ‘Jewish American Princess,’ ” Sills wrote.

“Regardless of how innocently the trial judge may have meant the term, the phrase is commonly recognized as a derogatory one.”

In a tart dissent, Justice Thomas F. Crosby Jr. said the “unfortunate” epithet was not proof of bias.

Quoting Dr. Samuel Johnson, an 18th-Century writer and critic, the justice wrote, “ ‘The Irish are a fair people--they never speak well of one another.’ He had a better handle on such matters in 1775 than my colleagues do in 1991.”

Crosby argued that most reasonable people would conclude that the judge’s remark was probably aimed at Carter’s attitude, not her heritage or sex.

“I have a low tolerance for judicial misconduct and realize the perception can be as damaging as the reality,” Crosby wrote. “But . . . there is nothing approaching either here.

“I see a litigant straining for an undeserved advantage, not a jurist who deserves this blot on his reputation.”

Carter, 35, who lives in Dallas and owns a marketing communications company in Newport Beach, said she believes “any racial slur is basically meant to intimidate another person.”

The appeals court decision, she said, had “to a great degree” restored her faith in the system.

“It’s just incredibly wonderful that somebody can look at their peers and say, ‘This is a wrong that needs to be righted,’ ” she said. “I’m really, really impressed and I’m really grateful.”

Judge Monarch, noting that he has been teased by friends and colleagues, quipped, “I don’t know how much more my ego can take.”

He said his comments were made in chambers to lawyers for Carter and her former husband as part of a “vain and desperate attempt” to make the pair realize that their bickering and failure to communicate was harming their child.

“I used the word ‘princess.’ Now, that does refer to Jewish-American princess, yes,” Monarch said. “But give me a break. The word I used was princess, she was behaving like a princess.”

Monarch said he does not consider the term derogatory and uses it to describe to his wife, who is Catholic.

“When she comes home from shopping with my daughters, I say, ‘Here comes the princess brigade,’ ” Monarch said. “I mean that only in the most loving way.”

Monarch said he realizes that his comment was “inappropriate” because of the special position he holds as a judge.

“I could have said she was behaving seriously inappropriately with respect to this child, but I can’t defend the use of this word,” Monarch said. “I shouldn’t have used it and I never will again.”