Reiner Tries to Play It Like Winner

For a man in danger of being a loser, Los Angeles County Dist. Atty. Ira Reiner tried to play it like a winner Tuesday.

It was Ira at his best--or his worst, at his most shifty or his most forthcoming. With Ira, it’s hard to tell.

His ability to shift with the currents had brought Reiner from obscurity to L.A. city controller and from city attorney to D.A. But his rise was rudely interrupted last year when he was beaten in the Democratic primary for attorney general by a challenger generally considered a lightweight--Arlo Smith, the San Francisco D.A.

Now, with a tough reelection campaign facing him, Reiner was trying to rediscover the old magic.

The occasion was a press conference that Reiner called to once again discuss his position on Superior Court Judge Joyce Karlin, who had given probation to grocer Soon Ja Du, convicted of killing 15-year-old Latasha Harlins after a fight over a container of orange juice.

After the sentencing, Reiner announced that he would have his deputies automatically move to disqualify Karlin from any criminal cases, known in legal circles as giving her a “blanket affidavit.” In other words, dump the referee if you don’t like the decision.

The announcement outraged Los Angeles’ legal establishment. Superior Court Presiding Judge Ricardo Torres was angry, as were other judges. Lawyers, worried about prosecutorial attacks on judicial independence, complained to the Los Angeles County Bar Assn. The group’s judiciary committee prepared to investigate. Anger went to the very top of the profession, to “Old Bailey,” a secretive group of top L.A. lawyers and judges who meet in private to discuss the state of the criminal justice system.

Among the angry were some of Reiner’s major campaign contributors. When judges, the bar association, Old Bailey and campaign dollars talk, district attorneys listen. So on Monday, Reiner backed down, saying he had told his deputies to disqualify Karlin on a case-by-case basis, rather than on every criminal case. And at his press conference on Tuesday, he explained.

Reiner said he’d met with Torres over the weekend. He strongly implied he had been assured that Karlin was leaving the criminal court for another assignment.

“He (Torres) indicated to me he is going to be making judicial assignments around Los Angeles County,” Reiner said. “ This will involve a great many judges and it will involve Judge Karlin. . . . He asked for the flexibility of making these assignments without the presence of the blanket affidavit. . . . It was a reasonable request and it was granted. Tomorrow there will be reassignments . . . and I think it will be resolved.”

The way Reiner told it, Karlin is headed so far into the depths of the Superior Court that her name will not appear in the papers for a long, long time.

I can see the advantages for the judges in this arrangement. They probably are fearful that Karlin--already targeted for defeat by black political leaders--would continue to be a point of contention when the judges next face voters.

But is this a victory for Reiner?

At first glance, it looks like a clear loss, that he was cowed into submission by the town’s power lawyers, judges and by his election foes, and is now desperately trying to tell everyone that he really won.

But that would be underestimating the man and his constant awareness of his constituency.

Rather, he may have helped himself with an important part of that constituency, the black community where Karlin’s sentence has provoked deep rage. When Reiner was elected in 1984, he carried African-American areas by a 7-1 margin.

Not all blacks approved of the blanket disqualification tactic against Karlin. Joe Duff, president of the Los Angeles branch of the National Assn. for the Advancement of Colored People, objected on the grounds that the same tactic could be used against black judges hearing cases involving African-American defendants.

But Reiner’s move also won suppport. “He ought to be treated as a hero in the black community, not held up to criticism,” said attorney Geoffrey Gibbs, who favors a strongly activist approach in the case.

Both Gibbs and Duff supported Reiner’s decision Tuesday to appeal Karlin’s sentence.

And, Reiner no doubt helped himself with the almost 1,000 deputy district attorneys, whose support is important in a reelection campaign. A personal appeal by Deputy Dist. Atty. Roxane Carjaval, who prosecuted the case, helped persuade Reiner to move against the judge.

Certainly, he’s scorned by the legal establishment. Now Reiner is looking elsewhere for support as he tries to ride the dangerous political currents unleashed by the killing of Latasha Harlins.