Angry Groups Vow to Drive Judge in Grocer Case From the Bench : Courts: But rights activists, upset at sentence of probation for fatal shooting, are also critical of Reiner’s plan to block jurist from handling any more criminal trials.

About 30 influential civil rights activists, politicians and clergy from Los Angeles’ black community vowed Tuesday to make “uncomfortable” and drive from the bench a Superior Court judge who gave a Korean-born grocer probation in the killing of a black teen-ager.

At the same time, however, several prominent blacks sharply criticized the prosecution’s handling of the case and lambasted Dist. Atty. Ira Reiner’s pledge to prevent the judge from handling any more criminal trials.

Reiner’s planned use of a procedural rule to remove Judge Joyce A. Karlin from criminal cases will eventually backfire against black defendants, they said, if it is used to remove other judges perceived as too lenient.

In a related development, the 18-judge executive committee of the Los Angeles Superior Court unanimously rebuked Reiner for striking back at Karlin. The committee called his action “an attempt to usurp the independence of the judiciary.”

At a crowded news conference in South-Central Los Angeles, Joe Duff, president of the Los Angeles branch of the National Assn. for the Advancement of Colored People, accused Reiner’s office of not being forceful enough in making the case to Karlin and the public that Soon Ja Du, 51, should have received the maximum 16-year sentence. Karlin, instead, sentenced Du to five years’ probation, a $500 fine and 400 hours of community service for voluntary manslaughter in the March 16 death of 15-year-old Latasha Harlins.

The teen-ager was shot once in the back of the head as she walked away from Du after the two had fought over a $1.79 bottle of orange juice that the grocer had accused the girl of trying to steal.

“The prosecution,” Duff said, “failed to aid the public understanding of the sentencing considerations by demanding only the maximum sentence, without articulating detailed reasons for recommending maximum sentencing.”

He also charged that Reiner “misled the people in this case from the beginning” by deciding not to make public before the start of Du’s trial a video of the shooting captured by a security camera. The video, which was shown repeatedly during the trial, made clear, Duff contended, that the shooting took place in the heat of the moment and did not show premeditation.

“The district attorney grossly overcharged the case, while withholding the most critical film evidence from public view,” said Duff. “The real issue was never over coldblooded killing, but over the wantonness or justification of hotblooded killing.”

On Monday, Reiner called the sentence handed to Du a “stunning miscarriage of justice” and vowed to prevent Karlin from hearing criminal cases by using his authority to remove any judge before the start of a trial.

Duff criticized that plan, not out of sympathy for Karlin, but because, he said, Reiner has used the procedure in the past against black judges and will use it again against judges he feels are not giving harsh enough sentences.

“That will end up hurting black people,” Duff said, “because the courts are full of us.”

Tuesday’s press conference drew together a broad coalition of prominent blacks, including representatives of the National Council of Negro Women and the Los Angeles Urban League, Assemblywoman Marguerite Archie Hudson (D-Los Angeles), aides to U.S. Rep. Maxine Waters (D-Los Angeles) and City Councilman Mark Ridley-Thomas and ministers of several large congregations.

They directed the harshest criticism at Karlin, a 40-year-old former federal prosecutor whom Gov. Pete Wilson appointed to the bench in July to replace a retiring judge.

Karlin, who was reportedly out of town and has remained silent since the Du sentencing Friday, was described by a procession of speakers as everything from insensitive and incompetent to racist.

Danny Bakewell, president of the Brotherhood Crusade, vowed that the group of blacks would make Karlin’s life “as uncomfortable as possible” by picketing her home unannounced, marching at the Compton Courthouse where she is assigned and opposing her should she run for election to the bench next year.

They also called on the public to send formal complaints about her to the California Commission on Judicial Performance. The group will file its own formal complaint, Bakewell said, after meeting with members of the Langston Hughes Bar Assn., a group of about 900 black lawyers.

“We must make her life uncomfortable,” Bakewell said. “She has made our lives intolerable.”

Bakewell would not say when the picketing of Karlin’s home will begin, but made it known that the group knows where she lives. He said the information came from contacts within the legal community.

The group also pledged to launch an investigation into why Karlin, who had been on the bench for only weeks, was assigned so volatile a case.

“It was a setup from the very beginning,” said Will Wade, who was representing Guidance Church of Religious Science.

Cary Nishimoto, supervising judge of the court’s Compton Division, said through a spokeswoman that Karlin was the only judge available in the district after the judge initially assigned to the case was unable to hear it. The second judge assigned to the case was transferred to civil court and two others were removed automatically--one at the request of the prosecution, the other by the defense.