Panel OKs Paddling for Graffiti Vandalism : Legislation: Assembly bill would allow four to 10 whacks in court. Speaker Brown vows to kill the measure.

Prodded by growing public dismay over graffiti, a key Assembly committee approved a landmark bill Tuesday allowing Juvenile Court judges to punish youthful taggers by ordering that they be whacked up to 10 times with a wooden paddle.

If enacted, the measure would reinstitute court-ordered corporal punishment in the United States for the first time in more than four decades, legal scholars say.

The Assembly Public Safety Committee voted 4 to 1 for the bill by Assemblyman Mickey Conroy, an Orange County Republican who was inspired by the caning in Singapore of an American teen-ager accused of spray-painting cars.

Conroy’s measure appeared to face long odds in the Public Safety Committee, which historically has been a graveyard for Republican crime bills. But two Democrats joined with a pair of Republicans to push the legislation forward.

It still must survive another committee hearing and an Assembly floor vote, where Speaker Willie Brown has vowed to defeat the bill, before it can move to the Senate. Gov. Pete Wilson has indicated his support for the bill.

The Public Safety Committee added a sunset clause requiring the Legislature to renew its approval after paddling is given a three-year trial run.

The committee endorsed the measure despite vocal opposition from the American Civil Liberties Union and other foes, who questioned the measure’s constitutionality and effectiveness while calling Conroy’s effort election-year posturing.

“The beating of offenders as a form of punishment runs contrary to the fundamental notions of decency in our justice system,” said Francisco Lobaco, ACLU legislative director. “It’s really not the way to solve the issue. State-sponsored violence is not an answer or a solution. I think it’s a horrible idea.”

Cathy Dreyfuss, legislative advocate for California Attorneys for Criminal Justice, described the bill as “court-sanctioned child abuse.” MaryAnn Memmer of the California PTA said Conroy’s proposed punishment would prove profoundly ineffective: “Hard-core gang criminals will not be deterred by a swat from a paddle.”

Conroy, however, portrayed his legislation as a firm way to steer errant youths away from destructive, gang-related activities such as violence and drugs. He also cited the high cost of graffiti cleanup and paraded half a dozen experts before the committee to provide vivid testimony about the violent intentions gang members sometimes express through graffiti.

“By spraying their gang markings and taggings all over their communities, these hoodlums commit the worst of all crimes possible--they create an environment of fear and despair for the innocent, law-abiding citizens living in these afflicted neighborhoods and communities,” Conroy said. “As many residents who live in such areas will tell you, once the graffiti moves into their communities, the crime and violence is quick to follow.”

Conroy contends that traditional forms of punishment, such as putting juvenile offenders in California Youth Authority facilities, are seen by hardened teen-agers as a badge of honor and do little to curb graffiti.

Conroy’s bill would allow a judge to order a parent to deliver four to 10 strokes with a wooden paddle in the courtroom. If the parent declined or the judge found the spanking unsatisfactory, a bailiff would do the paddling. The paddle would be 3/4 of an inch thick, 18 inches long and 6 inches wide, with a 6-inch handle.

In addition, the bill requires that the names of juvenile offenders who get the paddle be made public, a tactic designed to heighten the humiliation and deter other would-be taggers.

Conroy began pursuing the idea after being prodded by constituents and staff members caught up in the highly publicized debate over the Singapore case. Michael Fay, an 18-year-old high school senior from Dayton, Ohio, got four strokes of a rattan cane May 5 after being found guilty of vandalism.

Some critics worry that Conroy’s proposal and similar ideas circulating in Florida, Maryland and Texas could begin to tug the country back toward a style of courtroom punishment abandoned decades ago.

Many critics cite research showing that corporal punishment can lead to embitterment, anger and post-traumatic stress while teaching impressionable youths the contradictory lesson that violence is the way to solve problems.

The constitutionality of Conroy’s bill remains in the eye of the beholder. The California legislative counsel’s office, which provides legal opinions to state legislators, said Conroy’s bill is unconstitutional, but the staff counsel for the Public Safety Committee said that the issue remains “an open question” and that there is “no bright line” setting the limit for what is cruel and unusual punishment.

Conroy also has been particularly optimistic because U.S. Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia predicted in a recent talk that caning, a far more brutal form of punishment than paddling, could pass the high court’s muster.