Judge Accused of Neglecting Duty

The California Commission on Judicial Performance announced Wednesday that it is investigating a Riverside County judge accused of leaving court during session to go jogging and allowing clerks to run his courtroom in the absences.

The panel is pursuing charges that Superior Court Judge Christopher J. Sheldon “frequently failed to take the bench,” or left court during portions of his misdemeanor pretrial calendar. On some occasions, Sheldon “jogged on stairs inside the courthouse” while his pretrial hearings were underway in his Indio courtroom, according to a statement of the charges released by the commission.

Sheldon’s attorney James E. Friedhofer characterized the accusations against the judge as “sparse.”

Friedhofer said Sheldon sometimes left his courtroom “to encourage negotiations between prosecutors and defense attorneys. That is how most misdemeanor cases are resolved.”

The San Diego lawyer said that after some complaints were lodged, Sheldon “promptly discontinued the method whereby these stipulated resolutions were simply handled without him being physically present on the bench.”

Friedhofer said he would present a more detailed response to the commission, which polices California’s judges, in a formal filing within 20 days.

The panel has charged Sheldon, 48, with “willful misconduct in office” and conduct prejudicial to the administration of justice from July 1995 to February 1996.

If the charges are sustained, the judge could face removal, censure or a public or private admonishment.

The commission also charged that Sheldon allowed court clerks “to enter pleas and execute court documents imposing sentences, enter continuances agreed to by attorneys and set hearing dates” while he was out of the courtroom.

Additionally, the panel alleged that in some instances when pleas were entered in his absence Sheldon allowed clerks to stamp his signature on forms by which defendants waived their constitutional rights. In other instances, the commission charged, “for some pleas entered in [Sheldon’s] absence [he] signed rights waiver forms after the pretrial calendar was concluded.”

Sheldon, a graduate of UCLA Law School, served as a VISTA lawyer in Spokane, Wash., a prosecutor in Riverside County and a private practitioner in Blythe, Calif., before he was appointed to a Municipal Court judgeship by Gov. George Deukmejian in 1989. Gov. Pete Wilson elevated Sheldon to the Riverside Superior Court in 1992.