Mystery Presides Over Who Will Be Simpson Case Judge : Courts: One of nine jurists will soon be seen daily on live TV. Experts say an even temperament is essential.

Somewhere on the ninth floor of the Los Angeles Criminal Courts Building sits a judge who is about to be vaulted out of relative obscurity into international celebrity.

One of nine judges who preside over long cases on that high-security floor is likely to be named next week as the trial judge in the case of People vs. Orenthal James Simpson.

The judge who presides over the O.J. Simpson murder case “will become the most famous trial judge in this country because every day millions upon millions of Americans will be watching his or her every move,” said UCLA criminal law professor Peter Arenella.

For a judge, such an assignment offers both opportunity and peril. Just as Washington federal trial judge John Sirica is remembered for deftly handling the case of the Watergate burglars, Chicago federal trial judge Julius Hoffman is recalled as an intemperate figure for the way he presided over the trial of seven anti-war activists who organized massive protests at the 1968 Democratic Convention in Chicago. Five of the defendants were found guilty, but an appeals court reversed the convictions, in part because of what it called Hoffman’s “deprecatory and often antagonistic attitude toward the defense.”

The judge in the Simpson case may have a tougher job than Sirica or Hoffman because those cases--important as they were--were not televised.

“There are some judges who would love to have this case,” said Superior Court Judge Robert J. Perry, one of the nine under consideration.

“Others would find it extremely difficult to be in the glare of the spotlight,” said Perry, who was one of the prosecutors in the federal government’s unsuccessful 1984 cocaine conspiracy case against auto mogul John Z. DeLorean.

“Judges basically work in obscurity; you get your name in the paper when you sentence someone,” Perry said. The global scrutiny of the Simpson case poses an added burden, he said: “The judge who ends up with this case ends up representing all the judges. Keep in mind, judges here have to run for reelection.”

Superior Court Judge Curtis B. Rappe, who presided over the Cotton Club and Eddie Nash murder cases but is not in the running for the Simpson assignment, said he thought many judges could cope with the pressures of the former football star’s trial.

“I’m struck by the judges who get these high-visibility cases. They don’t seem awed by them,” Rappe said. “When it comes down to it, you settle in very quickly. You have the cameras in the courtroom, but when I did those cases I didn’t watch them on TV at night. You’re really not a TV star; you’re a judge. That’s it.”

Added Rappe, who became a judge in 1987: “The legal issues don’t change if it’s this case or a routine burglary.”

The candidates for the Simpson case are all “long cause” judges who handle lengthy, complex cases, according to Marcia Skolnick, spokeswoman for Presiding Judge Cecil J. Mills. Getting such an assignment is a sign that the judge is highly regarded by his colleagues.

Rappe said it was particularly important for such a judge to get the case because he or she does not have a regular calendar of cases. “You’ll have top flight attorneys on both sides raising every issue,” and the judge will need extra time for research, he said.

On Wednesday, Mills, speaking through spokeswoman Skolnick, said he has made no decision about who will preside over the Simpson case. He said no announcement will be made until Simpson’s July 22 arraignment.

Last week, Municipal Judge Kathleen Kennedy-Powell ruled that there was sufficient evidence to bind Simpson over for trial on charges that he murdered his former wife, Nicole Brown Simpson, and her friend Ronald Lyle Goldman.

Mills is not saying anything publicly about his selection process. People familiar with his decision-making style said he is likely to narrow the field to two or three before he makes a final choice. Sources also say that his second-in-command, Superior Court Judge Lance Ito, is likely to play a role in the process.

One judge, who asked not to be identified, said he thought Mills will probably try at least informally to learn the leanings of prosecutors and defense attorneys. That way he could avoid the possibility that the judge would be challenged.

Each side can reject one judge without stating any cause. If either wants to eliminate another judge, it has to show why the judge is not fit to hear the case.

Lawyers and other legal experts said the judge should have intelligence, independence, a strong sense of fairness, considerable composure and a measured temperament.

“You want a judge who is unflappable because of the pressure, both personal and professional,” said criminal defense lawyer Gerald L. Chaleff, who represented Angelo Buono, the man convicted of nine murders in the 1983 Hillside Strangler case. “You want someone who is fair, but in control, evenhanded, but allows the lawyers to try their case.”

No matter how experienced the judge, “this case will be different than any other case this judge has handled” because of the overwhelming media attention, Chaleff said. He said the judge will have to cope with the pressures of a widely watched proceeding while making sure that the trial is conducted fairly.

“The most important characteristics are maturity, balance, fairness, a certain sense of calm and tranquillity, and comfort with chaos,” said Los Angeles Superior Court Judge Alexander Williams, a former federal prosecutor who currently is hearing civil cases and is not a candidate for the Simpson case.

Attorneys and law professors alike said the judge needs to be analytically nimble.

Even before the trial starts, the judge will have to deal with several “very interesting and open-ended questions of law,” Arenella said.

“For example, there will be a major pretrial battle over whether DNA testing is admitted,” Arenella predicted. “California appellate cases on this issue are in conflict. To understand the issues in DNA testing requires a certain degree of intelligence. There is a great deal of scientific controversy over very subtle points of scientific methodology and reliability.”

Once the trial begins, the judge will need a strong knowledge of the rules of evidence because “there are so many decisions the judge will have to make so quickly,” said Loyola law school professor Laurie Levenson.

She added: “You need a judge who is neither intimidated by nor plays to the television cameras.”

Another qualification: a thick skin. Arenella said the judge should be “someone who is not sensitive to the constant Monday morning quarterbacking and criticism that the Simpson case will be subjected to by media commentators.”

Also essential is the ability to keep control of the courtroom, said Loyola law school professor Samuel H. Pillsbury, a former prosecutor.

“As in any case that is hotly contested, both sides are going to be trying to take control of the courtroom,” he said.

“It’s a very hard thing to explain because the judge is always in charge. But there is a subtle process by which things are negotiated in a courtroom. One sign of a judge who is in control is that you don’t notice it. There aren’t enormous battles,” Pillsbury said.

In courthouse circles, a frequently named front-runner for the case is Judge Paul G. Flynn.

He has presided in several noteworthy cases. In May, 1991, Flynn sentenced an Echo Park man to 13 years in prison for voluntary manslaughter after he killed his former wife--who had moved back into his home--and her lover as they lay in bed watching an X-rated video. In April, Flynn ruled that rapper Snoop Doggy Dogg and two other men must stand trial in the 1993 murder of an Ethiopian immigrant. s He was unavailable for comment.

Perry, 43, is considered a long shot because he has been on the bench for less time than any of the others (he was appointed in 1992 by Gov. Pete Wilson) and because Simpson’s original attorney, Howard Weitzman, was one of the lawyers who opposed Perry when he prosecuted the De Lorean case.

The other contenders are:

* Nancy M. Brown, 58, a veteran Superior Court judge with a strong reputation for independence. She presided over the preliminary hearing in the 1980 Bob’s Big Boy restaurant murders, in which four people were killed and five were wounded in a freezer.

* Charles E. Horan, 43, a former prosecutor in the district attorney’s major narcotics unit, who used to play in a rock ‘n’ roll band called “Use a Guitar, Go to Prison.”

* Jacqueline A. Connor, 42, a former deputy district attorney who started the office’s sexual assault unit. While supervising judge of the West Los Angeles branch of the Municipal Court, she attempted to organize a program to improve relations between police officers and people charged with resisting arrest.

* John W. Ouderkirk, 52, who presided over the trial of Damian Monroe Williams, convicted in the beating of trucker Reginald O. Denny on the first day of the 1992 Los Angeles riots.

* William R. Pounders, 55, who presided over the first McMartin Pre-school trial. He was replaced for the second trial after speaking on television about the case.

* J.D. Smith, 58, a former police officer, who has been a judge since 1982. Last year, after defense lawyers asserted that the district attorney’s office tampered with witnesses and withheld evidence, Smith agreed to send the “Bryant family” drug and murder case to the attorney general’s office for prosecution, but a state appeals court ruled in March that he had overstepped his authority and returned the prosecution to the district attorney.

* George W. Trammel III, 57, who has the longest tenure of any of the candidates. He started as a Municipal Court judge in 1971, where he declared that municipal jury panels discriminated against Latinos, and moved to the Superior Court in 1988.

Most of the high-publicity criminal trials in the Criminal Courts Building are held on the ninth floor because court officials can maintain tighter security there than in other parts of the building. The ninth floor was the setting for Simpson’s preliminary hearing.

Times staff writer Andrea Ford contributed to this story.