State Judicial Panel Calls for O.C. Jurist’s Censure

State judicial authorities took the unusual step Friday of recommending the public censure of an Orange County judge accused of denying poor and minority defendants access to lawyers and other basic constitutional rights.

The California Supreme Court must now consider whether to publicly admonish Municipal Judge Claude E. Whitney for “willful misconduct” and bringing his office into “disrepute.”

“A public censure is the most severe form of sanction for judicial misconduct short of removal from the bench,” said Victoria B. Henley, chief counsel for the Commission on Judicial Performance, which recommended the censure after a three-year investigation of Whitney.

Henley said Whitney apparently will not challenge the commission’s action, because he did not meet Thursday’s deadline to file a response.

Whitney, 64, did not return repeated phone calls seeking comment Friday.

“Judge Whitney acknowledges that mistakes were made by him in the past and accepts responsibility for those actions,” said a statement released by the judge’s defense attorney, Ronald G. Brower.

While presiding over one of the county’s busiest arraignment courts, Whitney was accused of trying to maintain a high rate of guilty pleas by routinely denying bail hearings and interpreters for defendants facing misdemeanor charges such as traffic violations and driving under the influence of drugs or alcohol.

One of the most serious allegations charged that Whitney effectively punished poor defendants who asked for attorneys by keeping them in jail for a week or 10 days before counsel was appointed.

The commission sent a 20-page report to the state Supreme Court detailing its findings against the judge. The report included findings that:

* Whitney refused to consider granting defendants probation or allowing them to be released on their own recognizance on misdemeanor charges.

* When legal errors were called to his attention, Whitney often ignored them. And investigators did not believe Whitney when he said he wasn’t alerted to potential problems. “His claim that he had no feedback on the subject, or was never told of the problem, is not supported by the evidence,” according to the report.

* Whitney told public defenders it was against the law for them to talk to defendants in custody. He once ordered a supervising public defender removed from the courtroom when the attorney asked the judge to notify defendants of their right to counsel.

“One cannot escape the concluding that Judge Whitney saw the appointed counsel during arraignment as an intrusion,” according to the report. The report notes that more than a dozen additional allegations against Whitney were dismissed for lack of evidence.

Santa Ana Municipal Judge James M. Brooks, who was presiding judge at the time of the complaints, said he was relieved the commission’s action wasn’t worse.

“This happened on my watch,” Brooks said. “The outcome could have been far more serious.”

*

Acensure is a rare public rebuke. In 1994, the commission received more than 1,320 complaints from throughout the state alleging judicial misconduct. The commission recommended censure in only one instance.

The action against Whitney was prompted by a 325-page complaint filed in January 1993 by the Orange County public defender’s office, the first such complaint the office had filed against a judge in almost 30 years.

Deputy Public Defender Allyn Jaffrey, who spearheaded the complaint against Whitney, said Friday that she was pleased with the commission’s action.

Jaffrey said she believes that Whitney has learned his lesson, and that the case has made a difference in Orange County’s criminal justice system.

“The Whitney case was eye-popping to many judges, and it’s made a difference in Orange County,” she said. “Judges are more mindful of their sworn duty to uphold the Constitution.”

Despite the ongoing state investigation, Whitney easily won reelection in 1994.

His opponent, attorney Dennis P. O’Connell, said Whitney’s actions add to the public’s already shaken confidence in the court system.

“This is a very sad day for all the county’s judges that do their best,” O’Connell said.

The allegations, first revealed publicly in The Times, sparked complaints of racism in the judicial system.

“I feel a vindication in one sense,” said Art Montez, spokesman for the League of United Latin American Citizens and a prominent Whitney critic. “But on the other hand, there is no vindication when someone goes into court seeking justice and becomes a victim.”

The case divided Orange County’s legal community. Judges and attorneys took sides, with the 5,000-member Orange County Bar Assn. issuing an unprecedented resolution saying “there was systematic denial of due process” for defendants in Whitney’s court.

Attorney Michelle Reinglass, who was bar president at the time, said she is glad the investigation is over.

“It was a painful time for everyone,” Reinglass said.

*

Whitney’s court also took the extraordinary step of saying it would allow any of the more than 20,000 defendants who might have felt coerced into pleading guilty before the judge to come forward and have their pleas withdrawn or set aside. No one took the court up on its offer, Brower said.

“Judge Whitney now looks forward to continued service in behalf of the citizens of Orange County and again thanks the voters for their confidence in overwhelmingly continuing him in office in his last election,” Brower said in his statement Friday.

After the initial complaints, the court signed a formal agreement with the public defender’s office to ensure that the law would be followed during arraignments.

Now, defendants in custody are notified of their constitutional rights during a videotaped presentation that all are required to watch, said Marjorie Laird Carter, presiding judge of the Santa Ana Municipal Court.

“This caused us all to stop and take at look at how we were doing things, and how we could improve,” Carter said. “Judge Whitney also made those efforts when certain things were pointed out to him. We look at him as a valuable member of the bench.”

Though she was pleased with Friday’s announcement, Jaffrey wondered why it had been so long in coming.

She contended the length of the investigation was “absolutely ridiculous” considering the volumes of documentation and evidence her office had supplied to back up the allegations.

“This case was handed to them on a silver platter,” she said.

Henley said the seriousness of the allegations required a detailed, in-depth investigation, and that it can take up to a year before the state Supreme Court acts on the commission’s recommendation.

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Judging the Judges

The state Commission on Judicial Performance on Friday recommended that Santa Ana Municipal Judge Claude E. Whitney be publicly censured for misconduct. Here are the alternatives from which the commission selected:

* Removal from the bench is the most serious punishment; extremely rare and used only in most severe misconduct cases.

* Public censure is second most serious punishment and amounts to a public rebuke for “willful misconduct.”

* Admonishment comes in two forms, public or private, depending on case circumstances; it’s a chastisement for improper acts.

* Advisory letter is least serious action; privately notifies recipient of wrongdoing.

Source: Commission on Judicial Performance; Researched by RENE LYNCH / Los Angeles Times