Justices Uphold Karlin’s Ruling in Slaying of Latasha Harlins

The state Supreme Court, ending a divisive, racially charged legal battle, on Thursday let stand Los Angeles Superior Court Judge Joyce A. Karlin’s decision granting probation to a Korean-born grocer in the videotaped fatal shooting of a black teen-ager.

In a brief order, the court refused to review an appellate ruling upholding the sentence issued by Karlin in November. The justices turned down an appeal by Los Angeles Dist. Atty. Ira Reiner, who called the sentence “manifestly unjust” and an abuse of judicial authority.

The sentence was imposed on Soon Ja Du, 51, convicted of voluntary manslaughter in the March, 1991, killing of 15-year-old Latasha Harlins, a customer Du said she suspected of trying to steal a bottle of orange juice from the family’s South Los Angeles store.

The judge’s refusal to send Du to prison set off a firestorm of controversy, further dividing the black and Korean-American communities and splitting the legal Establishment. Nonetheless, Karlin defeated three challengers and won reelection in June. Earlier this month, critics failed to gather enough signatures to place a recall measure on the November ballot.

Thursday’s high court order declining to review the case was signed by Chief Justice Malcolm M. Lucas. Four court votes are required for review, but none of the seven justices voted to hear the matter.

The action was welcomed as “a victory for an independent jurist and an independent judiciary” by Los Angeles attorney Donald Etra, who represented the Superior Court and Karlin against Reiner’s suit challenging the sentence.

“This indicates the Supreme Court agreed with the Court of Appeal’s very thorough and reasoned decision, which completely vindicated Judge Karlin,” Etra said. “There was no question in both my mind and Judge Karlin’s mind that the sentence was completely within the letter and spirit of the law.”

Sandi Gibbons, a spokeswoman for Reiner, issued a brief statement: “The Supreme Court has spoken and the matter is now final.”

Denise Harlins, an aunt of the victim and president of the Latasha Harlins Justice Committee, pledged a renewed effort early next year to recall Karlin. The group also is demanding a federal civil rights investigation of the killing, she said Thursday.

“We still haven’t got justice,” Denise Harlins said. “Latasha is still dead, Du is still out of jail and Judge Karlin is still on the bench. . . . I am really disappointed that the Supreme Court didn’t see it the people’s way and overturn the Court of Appeal. But that does not stop our effort.”

The trial of Du was highlighted by a dramatic videotape that showed the grocer shooting Harlins in the back of the head after the two had struggled over the bottle of juice that Du accused the teen-ager of trying to shoplift.

The tape showed Du pulling Harlins’ sweater as the girl approached the counter with the juice placed in her backpack. In the struggle, the girl was shown striking the grocer in the face, knocking her to the floor. Du threw a stool at Harlins, then grabbed a .38-caliber revolver from under the counter and shot the girl from a distance of three feet as she turned to leave.

Du said she fired the gun to protect herself after being assaulted by the teen-ager. The jury convicted Du of voluntary manslaughter--a killing committed in the heat of passion--for which the maximum sentence is 16 years in prison.

Judge Karlin granted Du probation, fined her $500 and ordered her to perform 400 hours of community service. Karlin said that while the law ordinarily called for a prison term when a firearm is used, there was an exception for unusual cases.

The requirement of prison was aimed at armed criminals, not law-abiding shopkeepers, the judge said. Du had legally kept the gun for self-protection, had no criminal record and had fired under “great provocation, coercion and duress,” Karlin concluded.

Reiner denounced the sentence, saying Karlin misapplied the law. But last April, the state appeal court held 3 to 0 that Karlin had not exceeded her authority, noting that judges have broad discretion in sentencing.

The appeal panel, in an opinion by Justice Herbert L. Ashby, conceded that a decision to forgo a prison sentence in such cases “may indeed be controversial.” But a reviewing court could overturn such a sentence only if it is “arbitrary or capricious or exceeds the bounds of reason,” Ashby said. Under that standard, Karlin’s sentence must be left intact, the opinion concluded.

In his subsequent appeal to the state high court, Reiner argued that the law requires a prison sentence in all cases in which a firearm is used illegally, whether by a criminal or a shopkeeper.

“(The sentence) contributes to the community’s loss of faith in the criminal justice system by implying that crimes found to be serious violations of the law by a jury will not be punished as serious by sentencing judges . . . ,” Reiner said in a brief filed with the court.