Judge’s Actions Raise Ethics Questions : Courts: Jaime Corral sought to expedite his son’s release, records show. Probation Department is reviewing its procedures.

The presiding judge of the Los Angeles County Juvenile Court intervened twice in the county Probation Department’s handling of his son’s juvenile case, first to have the youth sent to Juvenile Hall, then to seek his release.

Judge Jaime Corral’s actions have raised questions of potential conflict of interest and sparked concern about the way the department handles so-called “VIP cases.” In the wake of the controversy, the county’s chief probation officer has ordered his staff to re-examine the agency’s policies on cases involving the relatives of prominent people.

According to interviews and documents obtained by The Times, Corral contacted the Probation Department in August to ask that his son Daniel, then 17, be detained for violating the conditions of his probation, and in October to try to expedite the youth’s release. Both times, the agency complied with Corral’s requests.

A probation deputy later questioned the judge’s intervention, saying in a court report on the youth’s progress that it might give Daniel the idea that his father was trying to “use his influence to pull strings.” As a result, the deputy and his supervisor were disciplined for making remarks that department officials deemed “inappropriate.” The discipline was rescinded when the two men filed union grievances.

“This case did not deserve any special handling based upon the position of the minor’s father,” wrote the supervising officer, Larry Dodson, in a December, 1990, memo protesting the discipline. “However, I gave in to the pressures placed on us through the influences of Judge Corral. I accept responsibility for this.”

The documents also reveal that while he was trying to get his son out of Juvenile Hall, Corral suggested that a Los Angeles County judge would rule on the request--even though state judicial officials had ordered an Orange County judge to handle the case to avoid a conflict.

In a conversation with Dodson, Corral complained that the Orange County judge had been too harsh on his son, who had been convicted in August, 1989, of driving while intoxicated. The youth is now an 18-year-old college student.

Corral had not become the presiding judge at the time of his contact with probation officials. But they and others in the court system knew he would take over the job in January. Corral, citing confidentiality laws that prevent judges from discussing juvenile cases, has declined to comment.

“I have nothing to hide, but I can’t comment,” he said.

The case is particularly sensitive because the judge, as the highest-ranking official of the county’s Juvenile Court system, has frequent contact with officials of the Probation Department. Although he does not oversee the department, he has legal authority to order inspections of the juvenile halls and camps it administers.

Corral’s intervention, and the discipline of the two officers, sparked an internal investigation by the Supervising Deputy Probation Officers Assn., Local 660 of the Service Employees International Union. In addition to asking that department policy be re-examined, the union also asked Chief Probation Officer Barry J. Nidorf to transfer the Corral case to a probation department in another county.

Nidorf said he would do so if he had the authority, but he does not. He said that is up to the presiding judge--in this case Corral--and added that he has not asked Corral to approve a transfer.

Union officials also debated filing a complaint against Corral with the Commission on Judicial Performance, but decided against doing so, citing the judge’s rights as a parent.

“He was using his influence,” said Charles Hamson, the grievance officer who handled the union’s inquiry. “But the man is still the father.”

However, he said: “I’m upset, increasingly, with our own people. They could have told Judge Corral a lot of things. Why didn’t they tell him his son was going to be treated like anybody else?”

Judges must go out of their way to avoid even the appearance of ethical impropriety, according to experts on judicial conduct. The Canons of Judicial Ethics, adopted by the California Judges Assn., bar judges from using “the prestige of their office to advance the private interests of others.”

“The ethical canons are pretty clear on a judge not using his influence or authority to intervene on behalf of relatives,” said Gerald Uelmen, dean of the Law School at Santa Clara University and an expert on legal ethics.

Uelmen said a judge in Corral’s position “needs to be extremely careful, and more careful than other fathers would be, that his intervention is not perceived as carrying the clout or prestige of his judicial office.”

According to sources familiar with Daniel Corral, he has been before the Juvenile Court in connection with more than one case. All the details of those cases could not be learned because confidentiality laws prohibit the release of juvenile records. The Times obtained some records independently and petitioned the presiding judge of the Superior Court, Ricardo Torres, for the release of the complete file. The request was denied and The Times has asked Torres to reconsider. A hearing on the matter has been set for Thursday.

However, according to public records on file with the state Department of Motor Vehicles, the younger Corral has been cited for five driving violations since his conviction two years ago for driving under the influence of alcohol.

More recent, Daniel faced charges of assault with a deadly weapon with intent to cause great bodily injury. According to sources familiar with his case, he allegedly clubbed someone with a chair. But the case was dismissed during an open hearing in Juvenile Court on Monday after the alleged victim failed to appear to testify against Corral.

Daniel was not at the hearing and his lawyer declined to comment.

It is unclear when Daniel had his first contact with the juvenile court system.

At some point, county judicial officials learned of his case and notified the state Judicial Council, a 21-member panel that sets rules for the California courts. The council assigned Orange County Superior Court Judge Robert Jameson to handle the case to avoid a conflict of interest.

In August, 1990, while Daniel was at home, his father telephoned Paul Muntz, director of the Probation Department’s Whittier office, and asked that his son be detained for violating the conditions of his probation. At the time, the youth was failing to perform community work that was a condition of the probation.

In an interview, Muntz acknowledged receiving the phone call and complying with the request. He said he sent deputies to the judge’s house to pick up Daniel and take him to Juvenile Hall.

Hamson, the union grievance supervisor, said such treatment is unusual. Because the county’s juvenile halls are crowded, the department does not ordinarily detain probation violators unless their behavior is dangerous to themselves or others. Probation deputies usually wait until the next scheduled hearing to inform the judge that there has been a violation, and the judge decides what to do.

Muntz disagreed, saying that the agency sometimes responds to requests from parents. But when asked if Corral’s son was given special treatment, Muntz said: “I can’t say the fact that he is the judge’s son never had any influence on the decision.”

Sometime after the boy was taken to Juvenile Hall in August, Judge Jameson heard another case involving the youth, this one involving allegations of reckless driving. The judge ordered that he spend 150 days in Juvenile Hall.

But on Oct. 17, Judge Corral, saying that his son had been incarcerated long enough, telephoned his acquaintance Raul Solis, the superintendent of Central Juvenile Hall, where the boy was being held.

Corral told Solis that a hearing on his son’s release had been scheduled for the next day in Los Angeles County Juvenile Court, and indicated that he hoped for a favorable report from the Probation Department, said Hamson, who conducted the union investigation. Solis telephoned probation supervisor Dodson to tell him what Corral had said and to ask that the report be finished by the end of the day.

Solis acknowledged that the telephone calls took place, but said neither he nor the judge did anything improper.

“My call was merely to pass information along,” Solis said. “I did not want to get caught in the middle of something like this.” He added that he did not want anyone to think he was “trying to influence an outcome.”

As for why the judge called him, he said: “I think he was just letting me know that he had succeeded in getting the matter on calendar for reconsideration.”

Dodson declined to be interviewed. But according to a Nov. 5 memo he wrote about the incident, Solis told him the judge “was hoping for a favorable report from probation for release of his son.”

Dodson then told Solis to have the judge call him.

“Judge Corral called me right after I spoke with Raul,” Dodson said in the memo. “Judge Corral felt that the optimum benefit (of his son’s detention) had been gained and that his son should be released.

“He stated that the case had been heard by a judge brought in from Orange County and that the judge had imposed ‘Orange County brand of justice’ on his son,” the memo said. “The case was to be heard on Oct. 18, 1990, by one of the Los Angeles County judges at Los Padrinos Court.”

Just the fact that Corral called was unusual. Normally, probation officers receive written notices from the Juvenile Court that a hearing is coming up. The notices are sent out two weeks before a hearing to give deputies enough time to draft their reports.

Also unusual was Corral’s suggestion that a Los Angeles County judge hear the case. Juvenile Court Judge Marcus Tucker, at the time the supervising judge at Los Padrinos Juvenile Court, said he had disqualified himself from the case, and knew that it was being handled by an Orange County judge.

“Nobody in Los Padrinos would hear that case,” Tucker said.

The matter was heard by Jameson, the Orange County judge, on Oct. 31. Jameson ordered Daniel released, following a recommendation in the probation report that had been hastily written by Deputy Probation Officer Brady McCord after Corral’s telephone call.

That report, which prompted probation officials to issue the warning letters to McCord and Dodson, said the boy’s behavior had been excellent, but warned that Corral’s interference might send the wrong message to his son.

“The probation officer has reservations about recommending the minor be released,” the report stated. “It may be just one more indication to the minor that his father can use his influence to pull strings and get the minor off the hook.”