Post-Riot Justice Is Often Ruled by ‘Luck of Draw’

One month after the Los Angeles riots, justice has become a crapshoot for thousands of accused looters and curfew violators.

Suspects caught with stolen goods are threatened with minimum one-year jail terms in one set of courts--and offered community service in another.

Although the first curfew violators got 10-day jail sentences when brought before judges as the fires still smoldered, a second wave of defendants is offered a new deal, $300 fines.

Then there are the alleged looters fortunate enough to have been rounded up in mass groups leaving burning or trashed stores. One month later, they are being set free in droves--50 in one case alone--because police are unable to identify them in court.

“I suppose a lot of it’s the luck of the draw and it’s not equal,” said Phil Mueller, a head deputy district attorney. “But the system finds it very difficult to cope with all the cases. When you get down to the nitty-gritty, it gets very difficult.”

The groundwork for riot prosecutions was laid in the first hours of the unrest, when Dist. Atty. Ira Reiner set a policy designed to deter the mobs with threats of tough, consistent punishment. Looting-related violations would be treated as felonies and prosecutors would demand at least a year in jail, plea bargains included.

But a tour through Los Angeles courts this week showed that consistency has been elusive.

Take the case of Fidencio Hidalgo.

The 45-year-old was one of eight men arrested south of downtown at 9 p.m. on May 3 after police saw a group ransack stores at the corner of Washington Boulevard and Main Street, then run inside an apartment building.

Found with Hidalgo, according to court records, were 17 stolen microphones, seven blankets, two lanterns, “misc. clothing (and) various household appliances,” a haul greater than that of most accused looters.

But Hidalgo got lucky.

First, his case never made it to the district attorney’s office, which files felony charges. Instead, harried police officials sent his paperwork to the city attorney’s office, which brings only misdemeanors. As a result, his “496” charge of possession of stolen property--a “wobbler” that can also be a felony--was filed as a misdemeanor.

And whereas the district attorney was pushing for a year in prison for looting felonies, misdemeanors were being resolved in an assembly-line manner in Los Angeles Municipal Court, with considerably lighter treatment. Over the objections of city prosecutors, hundreds of “misdemeanor looters” pleaded guilty immediately after the riots and were given 30-day jail terms, which usually meant they served just 11 days because of programs designed to relieve jail crowding.

By this week, however, judges were offering an even better deal to misdemeanor suspects such as Hildago, who had been released on minimal bonds to await court appearances. In return for guilty pleas, they can choose from among three sentences: 30 days in jail, 300 hours of community service, or 30 days of work on a Caltrans cleanup crew.

Hidalgo was reminded he could also still contest the charges. “You can roll the dice . . . take your chances and stand trial,” Judge Leland B. Harris said. “. . . (But) if you lose, I guarantee you’ll lose big time.”

“I’ll plead guilty,” Hidalgo said, picking the Caltrans option.

Although a month cleaning litter from freeways is hardly getting off scot-free, he had only to wander a few blocks to realize how fortunate he had been.

Throughout the downtown Criminal Courts Building, other accused looters were being paraded through different stages of the felony process, arraignments and preliminary hearings, many facing the one-year jail terms for crimes seemingly less severe than his.

Led into one courtroom in handcuffs was Armando Rubio, 18, who police say was “gathering cans of soup and other food” at Phil’s Discount Store, near Little Tokyo. Deputy Public Defender Dan Kuperberg, who represents Rubio, urged the judge in vain to reduce his client’s charge to a misdemeanor.

He said Rubio might plead guilty if that was done and if Superior Court Judge John L. Henning would sentence him to the 29 days he had served, “notwithstanding Mr. Reiner’s . . . blanket policy for all people . . . whether they’re taking a watch or a television or food.”

The public defender said Rubio has not been able to make $1,000 bail because “he does not have any money. That may be that’s why he’s accused of stealing food.”

“I disagree,” replied Deputy Dist. Atty. John Moulin. “He’s a looter. He’s a burglar.”

Henning agreed in part, noting that Rubio and two colleagues allegedly bent a metal gate to get into the store. But the judge also said he may allow such defendants to plead guilty for lesser sentences--much as one Long Beach judge has suggested that six months is a more appropriate term for looters with otherwise clean records.

“It may very well be this does not merit a year,” Henning said.

Prosecutors acknowledge some inconsistencies in looting prosecutions, something they attribute to the extraordinary pressures on police--and a quirk of logistics.

According to city prosecutors, many looting cases like Hidalgo’s were sent directly to them from police watch commanders confronted with masses of suspects and little room for prisoners.

“The LAPD had their jails full,” said one city prosecutor, “so they put the people on the bus and shipped” their cases to misdemeanor arraignment courts. “We had to arraign them or get a D.A. to file (a felony). But under that mess, it was impossible to run them by the D.A.”

No one is sure how many looters wound up on the misdemeanor track, even though they might have drawn felonies. But city attorneys estimated that up to 30% of the 2,700 charges they filed involved petty theft or receiving stolen property, the misdemeanor counts directed at looters.

So for many looters, the severity of the charge “had to do more with where you went (which police station) than what you did,” said Maureen Siegel, acting chief of the criminal section of the city attorney’s office.

Or as another city prosecutor put it: “It was a matter a chance.”

Chance has been a factor, as well, in curfew prosecutions. During arraignments while the rioting was going on, municipal judges around Los Angeles County were handing out 10-day jail terms, along with one year’s probation, to those who pleaded guilty.

But this week, the same judges were offering curfew violators with no criminal records the options of $300 fines or 10 days’ community service. At the same time, there was more flexibility in the sentencing, as suspects with criminal records had to agree to work up to 30 days for Caltrans to avoid jail.

The judges involved declined to discuss exactly why the punishment changed. But one noted that the Board of Supervisors, in a May 5 resolution, urged that those convicted of riot crimes, “who are eligible,” be made to do community service, perhaps even “assist in cleanup of the debris left from the burning and looting.”

The county’s assistant public defender sees the change in looting and curfew sentences as a matter of timing.

“The riot is over,” said Michael Judge. “The community’s much calmer. The National Guard is home.”

While there still was rioting on the streets, courts “would want people to know it’s important for them not to succumb to the moment,” he said. “If you let them know there’s a penalty that may hurt, that may deter looting. . . . Now that the hysteria has dissipated, it’s time to take another look.”

Interestingly, Judge and other public defenders see one problem in the attractive sentences offered in misdemeanor cases: “A lot of people who ended up pleading guilty,” he said, “may well have had a legal defense to the charges.”

But it is the vastly different situation in felony cases that has really mobilized the public defenders, who represent most riot suspects. Here, they have waged a determined counterattack against Reiner’s demand for minimum one-year sentences, some charging that it represents politicking by the district attorney to appear tough for Tuesday’s election.

The defense attorneys also are challenging--with considerable success--the ability of police and prosecutors to prove often confusing looting cases.

Court records show that of the 820 riot cases that have gone to preliminary hearings in downtown municipal courts, fewer than 6% have been settled with guilty pleas while 28% have been dismissed for insufficient evidence--nearly three times the normal dismissal rate for felonies.

“The infamous bus case,” as it is called, prompts head shaking among prosecutors and judges alike.

On the afternoon of April 30, the first full day of rioting, 42 suspects were rounded up outside Bell Supplies, a clothing outlet on Martin Luther King Boulevard, and loaded onto an RTD bus commandeered by Los Angeles County sheriff’s deputies. But none of the looted clothing was kept as evidence “due to riot conditions.” And when the bus reached the police station, the Bell suspects were inadvertently mixed with eight others arrested at a burning shopping center across the street.

“In those mass arrests, needless to say, (police) have great difficulty remembering who’s who and what they were doing,” said Mueller, the head deputy district attorney who ordered the dropping of charges against all 50 suspects after judges dismissed several cases.

“I feel especially sorry for the cop on a street,” he said. “There is no way anyone could be prepared for anything like this. . . . But we’ll only go to trial if the case is winnable. If it’s not, we won’t.”

Another problem for prosecutors has been tracing merchandise to looted stores, which is necessary to get witnesses to testify it was, in fact, stolen. Police officers seated in the back of one court looked at each other in disbelief one afternoon when a judge questioned the proof in a case--even though stereo equipment was found in the back of a van in a riot area, in the original boxes with no receipts.

The shaky cases produced tense moments in court.

Municipal Judge Kathleen Kennedy-Powell was clearly frustrated after the district attorney’s office presented what she thought was weak evidence against accused looters at two straight preliminary hearings.

Kennedy-Powell freed one defendant, who promptly leaped into a dance of celebration outside the courtroom. She ordered two others held for trial, but commented: “I don’t think the People can prove their case.” She then challenged the prosecutor in court to defend the ethics of proceeding with such cases.

“I’m a foot soldier,” the young prosecutor responded. “I’m given commands.”

Most top prosecutors now concede that their goal of minimum one-year sentences is not likely to survive in all cases.

“There’s no question it’s a tough stand,” said John F. Lynch, who is overseeing riot prosecutions for the district attorney’s office. “(But) I can see where reasonable minds can disagree . . . 180 days in County Jail is not a slap on the wrist (either).”

“The system’s not perfect,” added Lynch, who is well aware that some looters, such as Hidalgo, slipped through the district attorney’s net and can go free with community service. “But just because some people got a break, it doesn’t mean that the standard is wrong.”

He also insisted that prosecutors are not so coldhearted that they would ignore true hardship cases. Lynch said defense attorneys have been told, “if you’ve got some extraordinary set of facts, like mothers stealing milk for their baby, come see the head deputy.”

“But,” he said, “we haven’t seen that.”