High Court Decision Gives ‘Free Rein’ to Abuse by Judges, Lawyer Says : Justice: A public defender dragged into a Van Nuys court criticizes the ruling on immunity from liability.

A Los Angeles deputy public defender complained Monday that the U. S. Supreme Court encouraged future judicial abuse by barring him from suing the judge who ordered police officers to drag him into a Van Nuys Superior Court.

Howard C. Waco called the high court’s ruling Monday a “bad signal,” saying it creates “an open-door policy where a judge could lose control and create a situation to do harm to an attorney and then have the courts give him free rein to do so.”

In a 5-3 decision, the court said Waco could not sue Judge Raymond T. Mireles over the Nov. 6, 1989, incident because Mireles is protected by the principle of judicial immunity from liability for actions he took as a judge.

The incident occurred when Mireles, annoyed that Waco had failed to appear for a hearing, ordered two Los Angeles police officers to fetch him from another Van Nuys court, quipping “bring me a piece” or “body part” of the public defender. The two officers, Gregory Baltad and Nicholas Titiriga, dragged Waco from the other judge’s court and hurled him into Mireles’.

Although Mireles later told an angry delegation of public defenders that he did not intend to be taken literally by the officers, the state Commission on Judicial Performance rebuked him for being careless in his remarks.

Waco filed a federal lawsuit against the judge and two officers, seeking $400,000 in damages and charging that the officers used excessive force at Mireles’ request and had injured him.

U. S. District Judge Terry J. Hatter dismissed Mireles from the suit, ruling that his actions were immune from civil liability. Waco appealed and a federal appeals court overturned Hatter, ruling that if Mireles had ordered the use of excessive force, he had gone beyond his authority.

On Monday, the Supreme Court reversed the appellate court, saying that even if Mireles “authorized and ratified the police officers’ use of excessive force,” he is immune from being sued.

“If judicial immunity means anything, it means that a judge will not be deprived of immunity because the action he took was in error or was in excess of his authority,” the court ruled.

Waco said he was disappointed by the ruling but would continue his lawsuit against the police officers.

“Unless there are liabilities for judges, the rules aren’t going to have any teeth,” Waco said. “I would be greatly disheartened if it happened to another attorney.”

Waco’s attorney, Hugh Manes, said the ruling could be “crippling” to attorneys.

“It immunizes the judges from any kind of a lawsuit arising from plainly malicious conduct,” Manes said. “It give judges the power to do on the bench what they certainly could not do on the street.

“This judge said, ‘Go out and commit a battery on Waco while you are bringing him back here,’ and that’s what they did,” Manes said. The ruling “implies that if he said, ‘Bring him in here and shoot him,’ then that is OK.”

But Assistant Los Angeles County Counsel Frederick Bennett, who represented the county court in the Supreme Court appeal, said Manes was wrong because the ruling addressed only the immunity of judges from civil liability.

“Judges can still commit crimes and be prosecuted for crimes,” Bennett said. “There are many, many sanctions that can be used against a judge.”

Bennett praised the ruling because he said it helped preserve one of the bedrock principles of the U. S. judicial system: that judges be allowed to independently and neutrally carry out their duties without fear of being sued.

“The only way to ensure that neutrality is to make them absolutely immune,” Bennett said. “This case was very important in that the Supreme Court did not cut away from the absolute protection enjoyed since the inception of this country.”

Mireles could not be reached for comment Monday, and his attorney referred calls for comment to Bennett.

After the incident involving Waco, the public defender’s office declared that deputy public defenders would not appear in Mireles’ courtroom. As a consequence, the presiding judge of the Van Nuys court ordered Mireles off all cases in which public defenders were involved. Mireles was later transferred to Los Angeles Superior Court.

In another effort to reduce tension, Waco was transferred to the San Fernando courthouse.