Judge of the Year Has Spent Life Battling Limits

Every year during a children’s reading program at a Ventura library, Ventura County Municipal Judge Barry B. Klopfer starts by explaining why he has a hook instead of a left hand.

Children are allowed to come up for a closer inspection. When everyone is comfortable, Klopfer reads one of his favorite children’s stories: “The Little Engine That Could.”

The hook “just sort of comes up,” Klopfer says, laughing. “When you walk into a group of children . . . they notice it right away.”

With his prosthetic arm and two artificial legs, Klopfer has spent a lifetime overcoming the physical challenges that he can and accepting the limitations that won’t go away. His ease with his situation--and his ability to make others feel comfortable--have earned the admiration of those around him.

Klopfer’s legal abilities, displayed during seven years on the bench, earned him this year’s Municipal Court Judge of the Year award, which is bestowed annually by a cross-section of attorneys.

Klopfer’s selection did not come as a result of a particular case or incident, but because he cares about the legal system and those who depend on it for justice, said David W. Long, secretary-treasurer of the Ventura County Trial Lawyers Assn., which sponsors the award.

“It’s just that he does it with such a marvelous openness,” Long said. “You look into the eyes and you know that not only does he hear what you say, he listens. When he rules against you . . . you never walk out of there saying, ‘I got short shrift.’ ”

That caring attitude, mentioned by almost everyone in describing Klopfer as a judge, is seen as a liability by some criminal defense attorneys. They say juries are sensitive to a judge’s attitude toward a case and can be swayed by it.

While it is natural to feel sympathy for a crime victim, a judge should not show it during a trial, the attorneys said.

“I think he’s very intelligent and I think he’s caring, but I think sometimes he’s too caring and he loses judicial perspective,” said a deputy public defender who asked not to be identified.

“He has a tendency to have his emotions expressed with body language,” the attorney said.

In response, Klopfer said he has never been told that he displays his emotions during a trial and will keep the criticism in mind.

“I certainly would not want to do anything to make the courtroom experience more difficult or uncomfortable for a victim, especially a child victim,” Klopfer said. “But by the same token, I do not, in the process, want to convey to the jury that I believe or disbelieve any witness, because that would usurp the jury’s role.”

Klopfer, 48, was appointed to the Municipal Court in 1986 by former Gov. George Deukmejian. A prosecutor for 15 years before that, Klopfer ended his career with the Ventura County district attorney’s office as supervisor of the consumer fraud unit.

Klopfer says he loved his years as a prosecutor but sought the judgeship because he wanted to play a more neutral role in the courtroom.

“Our whole system is an adversarial system, and that’s perfectly proper,” he said. “But I wanted a chance to work within that system not as an adversary or advocate for one side or the other, but as one trying to resolve the disputes and problems.”

In civil cases, Klopfer tries to work out a voluntary resolution to the dispute. In criminal matters, he seeks to understand the often complex circumstances that led to the crime.

“Many times the issue gets framed as one of guilt or innocence,” Klopfer said. “In many cases that’s not the truly underlying issue. The truly underlying issue more often is how guilty is guilty.

“We are all unique human beings and as such we tend to exist in a world with a whole variety of shades of gray, which are not as delineated as our guilty and not-guilty choices would have us think.”

For reasons unknown, Klopfer was born without a left arm and leg. His right leg had so many problems that, at the age of 19, Klopfer chose to have it amputated over the objections of his doctor, who wanted to try one more procedure before taking such drastic action.

The surgery was one of more than 20 that Klopfer had during his childhood and college years in Northern California.

“They did everything they could to keep me on it and save it,” Klopfer said. “But I figured if this (amputation) is where I’m going, I want to get there now and start up the hill again.”

Klopfer credits his parents with helping him come to grips with the limits imposed by his physical condition. As a child, he said, he wanted to do what everyone else was doing, and his parents let him try so he could learn for himself what the limits were.

After understanding what is possible and what is not, “the next trick is to do everything you can within those limits,” Klopfer said.

Klopfer has flown an airplane--using a shower head, a piece of scrap aluminum, hose clamps and an air-pressure hose to help him work the instrument panel. He also worked with a local photo shop to devise a way to use a camera, and his car is equipped with special controls.

“Doing what you want to do is a pipe dream for everybody,” Klopfer said. “Every one of us has our own personal limitations. They take all kinds of forms, there may be different bases for them, but we all have limitations.

“On the other side of the coin, we all have unique abilities and characteristics.”

Klopfer and his wife, Sara, who live in Ventura, have three grown children.

He has spent years working with the Easter Seal Society, which helps people with physical handicaps. Although no longer a board member, he continues to counsel people who are learning to face life without an arm or leg.

Klopfer became a lawyer at the urging of his father, who wanted him to choose a career that was mentally rather than physically challenging. After graduating from Stanford Law School in 1971, Klopfer was hired by the Ventura County district attorney’s office.

Assistant Dist. Atty. Colleen Toy White, who worked closely with Klopfer in the years before he became a judge, called him a legal scholar with “more people skills than anybody I know, and it doesn’t matter if you’re dealing with large or small groups.”

Criminal defense attorney James M. Farley said he respects Klopfer both personally and as a judge.

“I admire him tremendously for overcoming all the hardships he has,” Farley said. “He could be bitter, but he’s not.”

Diana Hancock, vice president of the Trial Lawyer’s Assn., said Klopfer was a unanimous choice for Judge of the Year. Among the factors that contribute to choosing a winner are intelligence, a sense of fairness, the ability to listen to both sides in a dispute and judicial demeanor, Hancock said.

One deputy district attorney, who asked for anonymity, said that some prosecutors are nervous about appearing before Klopfer because of an incident that occurred three years ago. Klopfer threatened to find Deputy Dist. Atty. Michael K. Frawley in contempt of court for submitting a document at a sentencing hearing that the judge considered improper.

“That caused him some enemies,” the unidentified prosecutor said. “He’s not someone that you can trust.”

Klopfer brushed off the comments, saying that whoever made them “either doesn’t understand what happened or doesn’t understand the law or doesn’t understand how it was all resolved.”

Frawley, who was spared a contempt sanction after Klopfer concluded that any error was unintentional, said he holds no grudge over the incident. In fact, Frawley said, he recommended to his supervisor that Klopfer be considered as Judge of the Year.

“He’s willing to look into issues and resolve them when he’s not otherwise compelled to, but he takes the extra effort,” Frawley said. “He really has the interests of justice at heart. You certainly don’t always agree with his rulings, but I think he’s sincere in his efforts to do the right thing.”

At the dinner honoring Klopfer and Superior Court Judge Richard D. Aldrich as Judges of the Year, Municipal Judge John R. Smiley called Klopfer “the most courageous person I know” and “the world’s nicest person.”

“He’s the first to volunteer for an extra assignment, to work late, to take on a gnarly legal question,” Smiley said. “He’s the one that all of us go to for advice and counsel or just to talk out a legal issue. His door and his mind are always open to everyone.”

Known for his easygoing personality and quick smile, Klopfer grew suddenly serious when asked what he believes his contribution as a judge has been.

“I can’t answer that,” he said. “I hope that I have added something of value, but I don’t know what.”