The Fight Against Crime: Notes From the Front : Contentious Proceedings Are a Real Trial

Ah, the noble barrister.

Hewing to the ancient traditions of the profession, this advocate may be found diligently pursuing the lofty truths that forge the law while jousting with exaggerated courtesy against a learned opponent.

Too bad that noble barrister stuff has faded into history, limited to “Rumpole of the Bailey” or black-and-white movies on late-night TV, to judge by a case winding to conclusion this Thursday in Van Nuys Superior Court.

During an otherwise routine burglary trial, the prosecutor urged the defense attorney to take a tranquilizer. The defense lawyer responded that the prosecutor ought to take diet pills. The judge told them to behave and all seemed calm for a few days.

Then the defense lawyer called the prosecutor “a (bad word) low-life piece of (another bad word).”

Court was not in session and no jurors heard the comment, but it was promptly reported to Judge Kathryne Ann Stoltz, who ordered the defense lawyer, Encino attorney Alex R. Kessel, to explain at a hearing Thursday why he should not be held in contempt of court.

The prosecutor, Renee F. Urman, 39, an eight-year veteran of the district attorney’s office, said she has never heard anything like it. Two years before, she said, a defense attorney had called her “the equivalent of a female dog. But that was nothing like this.”

Kessel, 37, a former deputy DA who has been in private practice for five years, insists he did nothing wrong, and indeed would repeat the remark. For a contempt charge to stick, the law requires insolence toward the judge, the direct violation of a court order or “boisterous conduct” that disrupts a court session.

What he did was none of the above, but simply an exercise of his free speech rights under the Constitution, he said, expressing his opinion of Urman’s tactics prosecuting Josh Coburn, a 20-year-old Arleta man on trial for felony burglary who eventually was convicted on a lesser charge.

Early in the trial, Stoltz told Kessel not to “become so emotional in his arguments to the court,” according to a court file.

That afternoon, Urman reported to the judge that she had said to the defense lawyer outside court: “Mr. Kessel, I think you need a Valium at this time,” according to the trial transcript.

Kessel, walking with Coburn’s father, commented in her hearing, “Well, she needs (very bad word) diet pills,” the prosecutor told the judge.

“All right,” Urman complained to the judge. “I understand that perhaps I’m overweight. I don’t care for the word (repeating very bad word) diet pills.”

The judge “strongly admonished” both lawyers not to make personal remarks.

But, Urman told the judge, she later overheard Kessel saying to Coburn’s father, “Oh, she has no personal life.” That, Urman said, was “derogatory.”

The Valium remark, the judge said, was “inappropriate.” The diet pill retort was “a low blow.” And to say that Urman had no personal life was “appalling and unforgivable.”

Then came July 25, and the “low-life” remark. Although no jurors heard it, the court reporter, court clerk and the bailiff did.

“Oh, boy,” court reporter Anna Papa said.

“I am thoroughly disgusted with the conduct of both of you,” Stoltz told the attorneys, according to the transcript.

It “may have been extremely tacky” for the prosecution to go after a defense witness for traffic warrants, Stoltz said. But Kessel’s “low-life” comment, she said, was “sufficiently aggravated to rise to the level of contempt.”

“I apologize to your court reporter and staff for using those words in front of them,” Kessel told the judge. “But I meant every word of it, Your Honor.”

“I would say it again,” he said in an interview.

What’s galling, Urman said in an interview, is that Stoltz gave Kessel “an opportunity to apologize. But he said he meant every word. It’s not like it used to be. You’d go in there, do your best, shake hands and leave the courtroom.

“It’s now getting very personal.”