Panel Reportedly Exonerates Two Judges Who Went on Cruise

Two judges who accompanied prominent Los Angeles trial attorneys on a weeklong Mediterranean cruise last year have been exonerated of any wrongdoing by the state Commission on Judicial Performance, according to legal sources.

Superior Court Judge Coleman Swart and retired Superior Court Judge Gabriel Gutierrez were said by the sources to have received confidential letters informing them that an inquiry concerning them and the cruise sponsored by attorneys Thomas V. Girardi and Walter J. Lack has been closed.

The Daily Journal, a Los Angeles legal newspaper, reported Wednesday that the usually secretive judicial commission had delivered the exoneration in a confidential opinion. The newspaper said both judges confirmed this.

However, commission staff counsel Cynthia Dorfman later denied that any opinion had been issued, and experts on the commission’s work told The Times that, instead, letters to judges are the commission’s preferred method of notification in such cases.

Dorfman, in interviews, mentioned the possibility of notification by letter, but would not confirm that the letters had been sent to Swart and Gutierrez.

Swart, describing himself as Girardi’s personal friend, has said that he and his wife paid their way on the cruise on the Cunard liner Sea Goddess II. But Gutierrez told associates that the cruise was free, except for air fare to Europe.

Altogether, 11 public and private judges went on the cruise, sponsored by Girardi and Lack a little more than a year after they won a $333-million settlement in a toxic pollution lawsuit against Pacific Gas & Electric Co.

Ninety people went on the cruise. Several of the private judges, plus many lawyers and expert witnesses who went, had a role in the Pacific Gas & Electric case. But neither Swart nor Gutierrez played any part in the suit.

Earlier this year, Victoria B. Henley, director of the Commission on Judicial Performance, refused to confirm reports that the commission was investigating the propriety of the judges going on the cruise.

“Complaints and investigations are not made public until such time as action is taken,” Henley said.

But Wednesday, Dorfman said, “If an investigation occurs and does not result in public action, nothing is public.” She said the commission sets rules defining public cases.

James E. Friedhofer, a San Diego attorney who represents many judges before the commission, noted that in 1997, the commission received 1,169 complaints, took disciplinary action in 15 cases and didn’t publicly announce its action in some of those 15.

The commission’s action exonerating Swart and Gutierrez was in line with its decision several years ago that then-state Supreme Court Chief Justice Malcolm Lucas was not guilty of any wrongdoing for taking several trips, including one to Asia, as the guest of Lloyds of London Press, since he had not heard any cases concerning it.

Since the commission has never made public the complaints in the matter, it cannot be stated whether they involved other judges who went on the cruise, or whether any of them have been exonerated.