Visiting Judge Gavels His Own Stamp on the Trial Over Baby’s Death

Soon after Ventura County Superior Court Judge Edwin M. Osborne was assigned the trial of a farm worker charged with killing her baby, the defense accused him of being prejudiced.

In disqualifying Osborne, Assistant Public Defender Jean L. Farley took advantage of a state law that gives each side in a trial one chance to get rid of a judge without having to prove prejudice.

Farley declined to explain her reasoning, but several attorneys said Osborne is often “papered,” as the practice is called, because defense attorneys see him as a harsh sentencer.

But if Farley was hoping for a more sympathetic ear, what she ended up with was Lynn D. (Buck) Compton, a visiting judge who was viewed as one of the most conservative jurists on the 2nd District Court of Appeal until his retirement last year.

“I told her, ‘you’re probably sorry you got me,’ ” Compton said in an interview.

Farley declined to comment directly on Compton’s handling of the trial.

“I don’t think I can make any accurate statement while the trial is proceeding without damaging my client’s right to a fair trial,” she said last week.

During his 21 years on the Los Angeles-based appeal court, Compton was noted for a number of highly publicized opinions, including one that suggested that lone female hitchhikers should anticipate sexual advances from men who pick them up. The language of his opinion was eventually toned down by other appeal court judges, but the reversal of a rape conviction was allowed to stand.

Compton, 70, was also at the forefront of issues such as the right to die. In upholding the right of quadriplegic Elizabeth Bouvia to have her feeding tubes removed, Compton in 1986 wrote: “If there is ever a time when we ought to be able to get the government off our backs, it is when we face death--either by choice or otherwise.”

And during his four-week stint in Ventura County, Compton has not been afraid to provoke controversy during the trial of Francisca Sanchez Jimenez, accused of killing an infant known as Baby Boy Sanchez in a portable toilet last July and trying to kill another newborn the year before.

“He’s really nice,” said Deputy Dist. Atty. Carol J. Nelson, “but he doesn’t want anything to slow down the proceedings.”

Like objections. In one of the trial’s early days, Farley made 16 objections and was overruled 10 times. Nelson batted zero, with all four of her objections overruled.

“He doesn’t want any hypertechnical things,” Nelson said. “He has a definite perspective, which may be just as valid.”

But both attorneys have rolled their eyes in frustration when the judge permitted questions that seemed to call for hearsay. And Nelson seemed miffed when Compton, in chambers, presented Farley with a gift for her child.

Compton, meanwhile, has complained about the often slow pace of the trial. “Could I plead with counsel once again to see if you can’t speed up your presentation?” he asked the attorneys on Jan. 23. “Just get to the point. Try to be more succinct with your questions.”

And the judge is trying to pack as much into each court day as possible, starting promptly at 9 a.m. and refusing to adjourn for the day until 5 p.m., five days a week. One day, he insisted that the next witness be called although it was 4:55 p.m. Jury selection was completed in about 6 1/2 hours--considered unusually fast for a murder trial.

Although Compton served more than two decades as an appeal court judge, he acknowledged that the Jimenez proceeding is the first significant case in which he has been the trial judge. That’s because unlike most appeal court justices, who typically serve stints in lower courts before their elevation, Compton was named straight to the appeal court by former Gov. Ronald Reagan. In the 1980s, he was on former Gov. George R. Deukmejian’s short list for a Supreme Court appointment before losing out to others.

But Compton clearly knows his way around the well of a courtroom. As chief deputy district attorney in Los Angeles County, he headed the prosecution team that convicted Sirhan B. Sirhan of the assassination of Sen. Robert F. Kennedy in 1968.

A native of Los Angeles, Compton lettered in football and baseball at UCLA and was captain of the 1942 baseball team--which accounts for the baseball terms he occasionally uses in court. “The signal’s off,” he said one day when he changed plans for a jury break.

After graduation, he joined the Army and was awarded the Bronze Star, the Silver Star and the Purple Heart during World War II. He was graduated from Loyola Law School in 1949.

He now makes his home on an island in Puget Sound, near Seattle, Wash. He stays with relatives in Westlake Village while serving on the Ventura County bench.

The Jimenez case is expected to go to the jury early this week. If the 23-year-old farm worker is found guilty, Farley will then present evidence aimed at proving Jimenez was insane at the time.

Although she has been “mildly frustrated” by the judge’s attitude toward her objections, Nelson said she thinks that Jimenez is getting a fair trial in Compton’s court. “I think the jury has had a fair shot at the facts,” she said.