Judge Is Target of State Inquiry : Courts: Orange County jurist is accused by public defender’s office of depriving poor of rights.

State judicial authorities are investigating a complaint that Orange County Municipal Judge Claude E. Whitney systematically deprived poor people of their constitutional rights, including access to an attorney.

In a terse three-paragraph statement released Monday, the Commission on Judicial Performance, a state watchdog agency that looks into charges of misconduct involving judges, disclosed that it was conducting an inquiry prompted by a formal complaint two weeks ago by the Orange County public defender’s office.

The public defender alleges that Whitney pursued a policy aimed at maintaining a high rate of guilty pleas from indigent defendants by illegally denying them prompt access to defense counsel.

Commission Director Victoria B. Henley declined to elaborate on the investigation, citing confidentiality restrictions imposed by state law.

Whitney, 61, of Newport Beach, a former divorce lawyer appointed to a judgeship four years ago by then-Gov. George Deukmejian, has declined to talk about the controversy and could not be reached for comment Monday.

If violations of state judicial canons are found, the judicial performance commission has a variety of disciplinary powers, from simple reprimand letters to removing an offending judge from the bench.

Concerns about Whitney’s behavior arose in October after the public defender’s office received information that defendants going before him had been deprived of their rights to counsel.

The agency, which represents those too poor to afford private defense counsel, monitored Whitney’s court and quietly sought a Superior Court order in December to end what it said was the blatant denial of rights to hundreds, if not thousands, charged with misdemeanors.

Even after wresting a written agreement from the Municipal Court that state and federal law would be followed, the public defender said the abuses were so serious that it lodged a formal complaint with the judicial performance commission on Jan. 13. It was the first such action taken against a judge by the public defender in almost 30 years.

The voluminous complaint alleges that Whitney, who oversaw one of the county’s busiest arraignment courts in the central county, prevented defendants from exercising their right to an attorney and ordered those asking for one to return to jail for a week until a lawyer could be found.

In addition, the complaint states that Whitney illegally denied people the right to bail hearings, did not provide adequate interpreters to Spanish-speaking defendants, handed down wrong sentences for crimes and discouraged or forbade defense attorneys in his courtroom from talking to defendants seeking counsel.

It is further alleged that Whitney pursued such policies with the knowledge of Presiding Judge James M. Brooks, who apparently was interested in maintaining a high rate of guilty pleas from poor people who could not afford bail or private counsel.

“I don’t think I should comment,” Brooks said Monday. “It is between them (the judicial performance commission) and Judge Whitney. I’m sure he will come out fine.”

In earlier statements, Brooks defended his embattled colleague as a good judge and rejected allegations that there was an official court policy to exclude public defenders from arraignments in Whitney’s courtroom.

Many of the allegations, Brooks has said, are the result of statements taken out of context and of attempts by deputy public defenders to undermine Whitney’s stiff sentencing practices for certain crimes.

Robert B. Kuhel, administrative officer for the Central Municipal Court, also said that bookkeeping errors by Whitney’s clerk might have contributed to the perception that Whitney was not handling cases properly.

But according to the public defender’s office, a review of court documents by Kuhel only turned up one incident where there might be a disagreement with what has been alleged in the complaint.