Judicial Nominee Gets Things Done Without Fanfare

Sam Paz proved once again last week why he’ll be a great federal judge.

With his help, the parents of Arturo (Smokey) Jimenez got a $450,000 out-of-court settlement resulting from a 1991 wrongful death suit they filed after a sheriff’s deputy fatally shot their 19-year-old son in the Ramona Gardens housing project in Lincoln Heights.

It was a tough case because the deputy involved in the shooting, Jason Mann, had been cleared of wrongdoing by the district attorney’s office and the county grand jury. Also, an internal Sheriff’s Department investigation concluded that Mann and his partner, Dana Ellison, had acted within department guidelines for the use of deadly force during the confrontation.

But Paz, who has handled hundreds of such cases, has seen it all before. The controversial Jimenez shooting, which prompted protests from Chicano community leaders and activists and an investigation into the Sheriff’s Department, was to him another example of unjustified police force.

“It goes back to growing up in a Chicano family,” he says. “Inside the home, you’re treated as an equal. But outside the front door, reality slaps you in the face. You find out, ‘Hey, you’re not equal.’ ”

*

When one of California’s U.S. senators, Barbara Boxer, announced last August that she had recommended Paz, 50, for a U.S. District Court judgeship in Los Angeles, the choice was praised in many quarters. Many Chicanos were overjoyed because if confirmed, Paz and Boxer’s other nominee, Los Angeles Municipal Judge Richard Paez, would be the first Mexican Americans to sit on the federal bench in L.A.

Paz’s friends and foes say he deserves the nomination because he is a fair-minded lawyer who plays by the rules.

He isn’t a headline-grabbing radical out to convict cops. He’s a meticulous yet cautious man who isn’t afraid to praise law enforcement authorities when they do right and criticize them when they do wrong.

“He has never retreated from his commitment of representing our community in police abuse cases,” says Antonia Hernandez, president and general counsel of the Mexican American Legal Defense and Educational Fund. “He’s made a living out of a field most lawyers would shy away from.”

One ranking law enforcement official in Los Angeles, who asked that his name not be used, says: “I hate what the man does to us in court, but I respect his work very much.”

Paz’s involvement in police abuse cases is substantial. In 1991, a jury awarded $8.9 million to one of his clients, a groundskeeper, who was left paralyzed after being shot by a Los Angeles police officer. That is one of the largest awards ever rendered by a jury in such a case. The City Council later settled the case for $5.5 million.

Later that year, Paz negotiated a $400,000 settlement for the widow of a 49-year-old Northridge man, Carl Bruaw, who died of an embolism in the County Jail infirmary after being strapped to a cot for six days.

His expertise in police abuse cases led to his appointment to a Latino advisory group to the Los Angeles Police Commission.

Paz was about to score his latest victory when I caught up with him last Monday in the Los Angeles courtroom of Superior Court Judge Joseph R. Kalin. I went to see the would-be judge in action, and I could tell quickly he had the opposing side in the Jimenez case on the run.

It turns out that Ellison, the deputy who was with Mann on the night of the shooting, contradicts Mann’s version of the incident--undermining the defense contention that the shooting of Jimenez was justified.

Paz doesn’t gloat. He waits patiently while defense attorneys leave to talk about a possible settlement. He explains things to Elva Jimenez, the dead boy’s mother, and she nods in agreement.

“We’d better be prepared to continue this case if they don’t offer us anything,” he says to a colleague.

But that doesn’t happen. The opponents return with a $450,000 offer.

*

Once it’s accepted and the Jimenez jury is dismissed, Paz begins to gather up his papers to leave. But the courtroom’s clerk, bailiff and court stenographer know a good lawyer when they see one and half-jokingly beg him to stay. “Don’t you have another case here?” they ask.

He laughs, and leaves without fanfare.

Later, he tells a reporter he doesn’t really want to talk about the judgeship. “Can’t you write about it later?” he gently asks. “This just isn’t done.”

He’s right, of course.