Judge in Gates Case Combines Taste for Poetry, Jurisprudence : Courts: Ronald M. Sohigian is called fair-minded with a fine grasp of the law--which to him is ‘hot and spicy.’

On Monday morning, five hours before his date with the matter of Daryl F. Gates vs. the Board of Police Commissioners, Los Angeles County Superior Court Judge Ronald M. Sohigian stood at the courthouse escalators, talking to a prosecutor.

Deputy Dist. Atty. Shirley Donoho had smiled when she saw him; here was a judge she had always liked and respected, and she told how she missed him now that he was handling cases outside her speciality.

“He’s a little bit on the shy side,” she said. “He just kind of snickered.” Their talk didn’t last much more than a minute. Then, politely, Sohigian hefted one of Donoho’s bags and carried it up the escalator for her.

Donoho didn’t know--and Sohigian didn’t mention--that by midafternoon, as the temperature rose to match the stakes, Sohigian’s courtroom would fill with reporters, photographers and lawyers and would become an arena for one of the fiercest political fights in Los Angeles history: the legal battle to let Gates go back to work as police chief, or to keep him from returning.

At the escalator and on the bench, Sohigian showed the same reserved, workmanlike manner that has been his since he was appointed to the bench by Gov. George Deukmejian in 1988.

The son of a Fresno working-class family, he is reputed to be as fair-minded in dispensing decisions as he was in his first major diplomatic balancing act between Ivy League rivals: he chose Yale for his undergraduate degree, Harvard for law school.

Law books and poetry books share shelf space in the chambers of the 53-year-old Sohigian, who as a young English major met the likes of Thornton Wilder and Archibald MacLeish and wrote for the literary review.

Sohigian arises at 3:30 a.m. to read for an hour--paperwork or poetry. He makes time each day to reread two or three short poems “in a completely unsystematic way, the way you would sneak a bite of candy,” he says. His daily jogs in the Santa Monica Mountains keep him fit and provide “a chance to think in the pre-dawn hours without interruption.” And “at that hour, owls are still out, deer and coyote can be seen more or less weekly, and in the summer months, an occasional hawk is just getting started.”

If there is poetry in motions, it is in the proceedings in Sohigian’s courtroom, where matters tend to move quickly. John Rubin, an attorney who has appeared before Sohigian several times, says: “In his courtroom demeanor, his ability is obvious. These judges have large dockets, they have to grasp new areas of law quickly. He seems to be able to do that, to the extent of being able to battle an advocate on the advocate’s own terms.”

He and another judge hear writs and receivers. To the layman’s eye, it is “backstage” law, largely devoid of the celebrity dazzle of certain divorce and criminal cases that have sometimes turned Los Angeles courtrooms into an extension of studio sound stages.

“He commands respect for the court,” Donoho said. “It’s obvious he respects the court and he expects people who appear in it to respect it, and that’s rather refreshing because you don’t see a whole lot of that nowadays.”

Patrick Patterson is an attorney for the NAACP’s Legal Defense and Educational Fund, and won a ruling from Sohigian last year that broadened the case against a property management company accused of bias.

Sohigian “did his homework, he read the papers and the briefs carefully,” Patterson said. “He’s known for that. He will frequently write detailed tentative rulings, much more detailed than other judges, indicating he has read carefully.”

“I think it is (known) by any lawyers who appear before him that they’re going to be held to very high standards and have to be prepared on every detail, and have to comply with every rule in the book in the courtroom,” Patterson said.

On Monday, when nine attorneys in blue suits were arrayed before him, he kept pressing Hillel Chodos, the Police Commission’s private attorney, for a clear explanation of commission’s and the City Council’s power. After rambling a few minutes, Chodos acknowledged, “I will confess I’m not prepared. . . . “

“That’s enough,” Sohigian interrupted. “Let’s not fill the air with sawdust.”

He pointed out caustically that some documents were not numbered--”three inches of paper, neatly put together, marvelously briefed.” He made his point by directing the attorneys to a section of the documents “about 1/2-inch down from the top. I’d like to refer by page . . . but I’ll have to do it by inches.”

When the hearing was over, Sohigian sent Gates back to work, but ruled that lawyers for the commission and civil rights groups could return to court April 25 and argue that the City Council overstepped its authority when it agreed to give Gates his job back. It is a question with potentially profound implications for the city’s power structure.

While the City Charter says that the Police Commission can hire, fire and discipline the police chief, it gives the City Council authority to settle lawsuits. The court may ultimately have to decide just who controls the Police Department--the City Council or the Police Commissioners appointed by the mayor.

Sohigian--who will be the first judge with a crack at the case but, should it climb through the legal system, far from the last--practiced criminal and civil law in the early 1960s, in San Francisco and in Los Angeles. It is, he believes, “a socially valuable” profession that draws on the debating skills he acquired in college--”rhetoric, organization of thought, expression of views.”

He once told a legal journal that the law is “not dry . . . it’s really hot and spicy.”