Politics and the Du Verdict

“All happy families,” wrote Leo Tolstoy in the opening to “Anna Karenina,” “are alike; every unhappy family is unhappy in its own way.”

In the most important sense, all killings are alike, too. But every person convicted of taking a life--or, for that matter, of any crime--is different. Rational societies recognize that fact, and grant their judges the widest discretion that a decent regard for equity and order will allow. They also attempt to insulate judges exercising such discretion from the momentary passions of an angry and inflamed community.

This notion--that dispassionate and independent jurists must judge each individual and case on its particular merits--is indispensable to the American concept of legal justice. Yet it is precisely this process that is most clearly threatened by the attempt to take political advantage from the Soon Ja Du case.

Du, a Korean immigrant whose family operated a grocery store in a crime-ridden South Los Angeles neighborhood, shot and killed Latasha Harlins, a 15-year-old African-American girl, after the two became involved in an altercation over what Du claims was the girl’s attempt to steal a small container of orange juice. The sequence of events leading to the shooting was chillingly recorded by the store’s security camera.

But last month, a jury, five of whose members were black, rejected the prosecution’s demand for a verdict of second-degree murder. Instead, Du was convicted of voluntary manslaughter. A week ago, Judge Joyce A. Karlin gave Du a suspended 10-year sentence, placed her on five years probation and ordered her to perform 400 hours of community service and pay a $500 fine and restitution to the Harlins family.

The family and a number of black community leaders were angered by Karlin’s decision not to send Du to prison. One group threatened to picket the judge’s house; others said they would oppose her when she stands for election next year.

All said the sentence would increase tensions between African-Americans and Koreans in South L.A., where so far this year two blacks and three Koreans have been killed in incidents involving Korean shopkeepers. Over the past decade, 19 Korean grocers have been killed in predominantly black areas of Los Angeles County. During the two years they operated it, the Dus’ store was robbed three times and burglarized 40.

It was in these troubled waters that Los Angeles County Dist. Atty. Ira Reiner chose to cast the net of his ambition. Du’s trial is the latest in a series of intensely publicized cases the D.A. has lost over the past few years. But then, Reiner’s grasp on everything but political opportunity always has been a bit shaky. This was no exception: Monday, he called a press conference and announced that he had ordered his deputies to exercise their right to refuse to try cases in front of Karlin because “by this sentence she has shown she has no credibility.”

Reiner is a politician in trouble. Having failed to win the Democrats’ nomination for state attorney general, he will seek reelection as D.A. To distract public attention from his own problems, Reiner needs a campaign issue and, apparently, thinks a little judge bashing might do the trick.

Last week, he announced at yet another press conference that his office would keep records of individual judges’ sentencing records to ensure their “accountability.” In other words, Reiner intends to dictate whether judges will be allowed to try criminal cases, and what those judges’ sentences will be.

Voters should see the district attorney’s dangerous assault on judicial independence for the shabby and self-interested ploy it is.

But the question of what Reiner and others have attempted to make of Karlin’s sentence is separate from the issue of the decision itself. Serious people of good will are bound to differ over whether Du should have been sent to prison. The real questions are whether Karlin’s decision not to do so was taken in accordance with the law, whether it was arrived at in good conscience, without bias or regard to political pressure. The answer to those questions seems to be yes. And that, rather than infallibility, is what may reasonably be expected from a capable and independent judge.

Karlin declined to be interviewed for this column. But the unusually precise and detailed statement she made when sentencing Du is worth quoting at some length:

“One thing I think both sides will agree on,” she said, “is that nothing I can do, nothing the judicial system can do--nothing and no one--will lessen the loss suffered by Latasha Harlins’ family and friends. . . .

“Statements by the district attorney that suggest that imposing less than the maximum sentence will send a message that a black child’s life is not worthy of protection are dangerous rhetoric, which serves no purpose other than to pour gasoline on a fire.

“This is not a time for revenge and my job is not to exact revenge for those who demand it. There are those in the community who have publicly demanded in the name of justice that the maximum sentence be imposed in this case. But it is my opinion that justice is never served when public opinion, prejudice, revenge or unwarranted sympathy are considered by a sentencing court in resolving a case.

“In deciding what sentence should be imposed in this case, I am required by law to consider Mrs. Du as an individual in the context of the crime of which she has been convicted. . . .

“Mrs. Du is a 50-year-old woman with no criminal history and no history of violence. . . . The district attorney would have this court ignore the very real terror experienced by the Du family before the shooting and the fear Mrs. Du experienced as she worked by herself the day of the shooting. . . .

“She went to work that Saturday to save her son from having to work. Mrs. Du’s son had begged his parents to close the store. He was afraid because he had been the victim of repeated robberies and terrorism in that same store. On the day of the shooting, Mrs. Du volunteered to cover for her son to save him one day of fear.

“Did Mrs. Du react inappropriately to Latasha? Absolutely.

“Was Mrs. Du’s overreaction understandable? I think so.”

It also is understandable that the Du case has aroused a deep and resentful anger in many African-Americans. Each day, disproportionately high numbers of blacks are hauled into criminal courts across this country. There, they are far more likely than other defendants to be convicted and to receive the harshest available penalty.

This disgrace persists because so few African-American defendants receive what they are entitled to--the same sort of rigorous, but compassionate deliberation Soon Ja Du received at the hands of Judge Joyce Karlin.