<i> Snapshots of life in the Golden State.</i> : Judge Gets Scolded for Rattling Scales of Justice

A Kern County judge who had the head of a rattlesnake placed outside a criminal defendant’s cell six years ago has finally received a public scolding from the state Commission on Judicial Performance.

Superior Court Judge Gary T. Friedman pulled the perverse prank in 1987 after the defendant, a state prison inmate facing sentencing on a weapons charge, informed Friedman that he had a fear of snakes.

“Humor can assist in humanizing the otherwise intimidating atmosphere of our courts,” the state’s judicial discipline agency concluded in a public reproval letter issued this week. “However, humor at the expense of another, or humor intended or likely to demean or belittle another is unacceptable.

“This is particularly true when the object of the joke is someone who has been deprived of his liberty and who is submitting to the jurisdiction of the court.”

Friedman was also criticized by the commission for sending a photo of a TV newscaster to a “vulnerable” defendant who had a “bizarre obsession” with the personality.

Friedman, who agreed to the wording of the reproval letter, said he “at no time intended to demean” the defendants.

*

Righter than right: Ever think the state Republican Party is too moderate and conciliatory in its views on abortion, gay rights and other sensitive social issues?

Well, there’s a new party for you: the Puritan Party.

Disillusioned by the GOP’s attempts to court a diverse constituency, a group of Inland Empire Republican Party activists have splintered off to form the ultraconservative organization.

“The Republican Party is just lip service and now they’re talking about taking out the sanctity-of-human-life plank in the platform,” says Puritan Regional Director Colleen Cummings, a former Riverside County Republican Central Committee member. “If you don’t stand for something, what’s the point of even having a party?”

State Republican Party spokesman John Peschong, while acknowledging that party leaders “are upset people have left,” nonetheless predicts that the Puritans will return home rather than risk the chance of helping Democrats win election.

Puritan leaders, who must register nearly 79,000 voters to qualify for the 1994 state election ballot, say their goals are “to be faithful to God and provide a traditional moral-values alternative.”

They named their party in honor of the early settlers of New England, who set sail for the New World after failing to reshape the Church of England.

“Puritans have gotten a bad rap,” said Puritan Party spokesman Warren Fain, a high school history teacher from Corona. “When historians paint them as dire, strict prudes, that’s just not true.

“They did have games, events and carnivals within their Christian context. . . . There was square-dancing and various activities like that.”

The Puritans’ participation in the Salem witch trials “was an aberration,” Fain added.

*

Taking to the Road

The licensed driver population continued to increase statewide last year, rising to 20.14 million from 18.5 million five years ago. Not surprisingly, nearly 30% of the state’s licensed drivers are in Los Angeles County. Listed are the five counties with the most licensed drivers in 1992 and the five with the fewest.

TOP 5 LICENSED BOTTOM 5 LICENSED COUNTIES DRIVERS COUNTIES DRIVERS Los Angeles 5,555,600 Trinity 9,800 Orange 1,795,800 Mono 7,800 San Diego 1,732,600 Modoc 6,700 Santa Clara 1,094,800 Sierra 2,600 San Bernardino 943,100 Alpine 800

Source: State Department of Motor Vehicles Compiled by researcher Tracy Thomas

*

You can tell it’s summer when: The National Park Service issues its annual warning not to drink the surface water in Yosemite National Park and the San Francisco Bay Guardian publishes its annual list of nude beaches in Northern California.

According to the Park Service, campers should boil water from mountain lakes and streams for at least a minute to guard against giardia contamination from human and animal fecal matter.

According to the Guardian, the number of nude beaches has increased by nearly 30% in the last two years. Several of the 89 beaches are in San Francisco, one of them under the Golden Gate Bridge.

*

Rebuffed: Speaking of nudity, a group of state prisoners-rights activists, upset that female guards see naked male inmates, have formed the Citizens Against Sexual Exploitation of Men in California Prisons.

Female staffers are guilty of “visually raping (prisoners’) nude bodies as they shower,” contended co-founder Jean Pierre Cartier, a recent parolee from Corcoran State Prison, where he served time for grand theft.

Although the group has had no success in its call for the removal of top state correctional officials, it has caught the attention of state Sen. Robert Presley (D-Riverside).

Since Presley complained about the shower facilities at several prisons, the Department of Corrections has agreed to install “modesty screens” to provide inmates with a modicum of privacy.

EXIT LINE

“The quality of the paper is really going down the drain.”

--Contra Costa County Clerk Laura Martins, speaking to the San Francisco Chronicle after county officials helped trim the budget by switching brands of toilet paper in government buildings to a scratchy, non-absorbent type.