Judge Faces Misconduct Hearing : Courts: Proceedings against Kings County jurist will be public. State panel has been criticized for secrecy and leniency in prior cases.

The state Commission on Judicial Performance announced Tuesday that it will hold a public hearing into charges of serious misconduct against a Kings County judge--the first such hearing since voters passed a 1988 initiative designed to strip the veil of secrecy from these proceedings.

The commission has been heavily criticized in recent months for failing to hold open hearings and for meting out lenient discipline. Legislation to force the commission to conduct more of its hearings in public has passed the state Senate and is pending in the Assembly.

On Tuesday, the commission accused Corcoran Municipal Court Judge Glenda K. Doan of four counts of misconduct. She denied the charges.

The first charge alleges that the judge presided over a bail reduction hearing for her gardener, who was charged with conspiracy to purchase cocaine, a felony narcotics offense.

Judge Doan owed the gardener, Miguel Meneses, $400 for his services. The day after he was arrested in March, 1993, Meneses’ wife approached the judge at her home for help. The judge then arranged for the wife to visit her husband and accompanied her to the jail.

“At the jail, Judge Doan spoke with Meneses . . . and advised him not to speak about the incident, but rather to obtain the services of an attorney,” according to the charges. The same day she called a Corcoran police officer and asked him if he opposed Meneses being released on his own recognizance. The officer’s supervisor went to the judge’s chambers and said he opposed such a release. Another judge set bail at $100,000.

However, a few days later, Doan presided over a bail reduction hearing, did not disclose her ties to Meneses and “falsely stated” that a Corcoran officer did not oppose releasing the defendant on his own recognizance, the charges state. She then ordered him released without bail.

The commission also charged that Judge Doan:

* Failed to report two loans on her annual statement of economic interests, including a $3,000 loan from a Corcoran police lieutenant who was the court liaison of the Corcoran Police Department. The judge insisted that there be no written evidence of the loan. The other loan was $740 from a court clerk who was her subordinate.

The commission said the loans were part of a “continuing pattern of failure to report income or loans” and cited two prior incidents.

* “Improperly exploited her judicial position” by accepting several allegedly improper loans. For example, in December, 1991, she borrowed $10,410 from local businessman Hugh Osburn, which has not been repaid. “Osburn and his business . . . frequently appear before the court on which Judge Doan sits.” Additionally, Doan borrowed about $10,000 from another local businessman, Morris Proctor, and subsequently presided over the criminal sentencing of Proctor’s son, Jason. That loan has not been repaid either.

* Deliberately made false statements in a personal bankruptcy petition that she filed in June, 1993.

The formal charges also include Doan’s denials that she engaged in any misconduct. She contends that her statement to Meneses that he should not speak to anyone without consulting a lawyer “was one that she ordinarily made to unrepresented defendants pursuant to her obligation to preserve the defendant’s right to a fair trial.”

She also asserts that her relationship with Meneses did not oblige her to remove herself from the case.

“Imagine if this argument were used in O.J. Simpson’s case,” Doan said in a statement issued by her lawyer Thursday. “No judge could pass over his matters because they all knew him. He was their sportscaster, or hero or whatever. . . . I would not put my judicial career on the line for my gardener.”

Doan also denied that she “engaged in a continuing pattern of failure to report income or loans” on her economic statements. She maintains that the loan from the police officer was “a friendly ‘handshake loan’ ” obtained at the time her husband was involved in a failing business.

The judge also maintained that she does not have continuing business relationships with Osburn and Proctor. She said her interpretation of the Canons of Ethics does not “prohibit her, in a small community, from dealing in arm’s-length transactions with persons and businesses who are likely to come before the court upon which she sits.”

Doan also denied making any false statements on her bankruptcy petition.

The commission’s statement, issued by chief counsel Victoria B. Henley, noted that the commencement of formal proceedings against Doan is not a determination that she is guilty of misconduct.

The hearing, presided over by three judges, is scheduled to begin Aug. 16 in Fresno.

After the hearing, the judges are to report to the commission on their findings.

Doan was first elected in 1982 and was reelected in 1988 and 1994.

The investigation that led to the current charges was under way during Doan’s recent reelection campaign.

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Times staff writer Mark Arax contributed to this story.