When Search Is On, Judge Is 1st to Be Found

It’s the middle of the night. Police roll up on a house where a woman was murdered, probably by her husband.

Detectives want to search the house for evidence, but they need a warrant.

So they go to the home of the on-call judge--a grumpy man in his 60s--wake him with a knock on his door and ask him to approve the search.

At least, that’s how it happens in the movies. And, as it turns out, in real life. When it comes to late-night warrants, the classic Hollywood scenario comes pretty close to reality.

Warrants are primarily the province of municipal court judges. They review and sign them routinely during workdays.

But 32 Los Angeles Municipal Court judges have volunteered to allow detectives to call them at home, long after court robes have been hung up for the night, if a warrant is needed immediately.

“I usually get them when I’m having a dinner party,” said Van Nuys Supervising Municipal Court Judge Leslie Dunn. “It means stopping what I’m doing and sometimes things burn, but I’m happy to do it. It’s part of my job.”

She said police officers call her at home about twice a week, and only occasionally get her out of bed.

The worst instance came three years ago when her phone ran at 3 a.m. and officers arrived an hour and a half later.

“But I couldn’t complain,” Dunn said. “The detectives had been up for 48 hours.”

Technology has eased the burden, she said. Now detectives can fax warrants, and she can sign them and fax them back if they’re not too complicated.

Sometimes detectives can also get verbal approval, said LAPD Det. Mike Coffey of the North Hollywood homicide desk. Officers will call judges and tell them what they want to search and why. The call is recorded and later transcribed.

Getting a warrant in the middle of the night is important, because without it or a suspect’s permission, a search for evidence is severely limited.

Coffey’s most memorable after-hours warrant came in 1978, he said, when he was still green.

He doesn’t remember what the case was about. He doesn’t remember what he wanted to search or what he hoped to find there. But he does remember then-Municipal Court Judge Michael Luros signed the warrant. That’s because Luros was wearing a tuxedo and they were in the lobby of Mann’s Chinese Theater in Hollywood. Luros had gotten a call from detectives on his beeper as he watched a movie premiere.

“Law enforcement is kind of like a Denny’s. It’s open 24 hours a day,” said Luros, now a Superior Court judge in the Antelope Valley. “These things have a habit of happening at odd moments.”

He said detectives rarely call him for warrants anymore, and usually only for very complicated or big cases.

A few months ago, Luros received a call from desperate detectives who needed a warrant to search a man’s house.

They had reason to believe the man had enough canisters of nerve gas in his home to kill “a significant portion” of Los Angeles.

“With that kind of threat you’ve got to be available, you’ve got to respond,” he said.

Luros signed the warrant. SWAT officers surrounded the home and seized the canisters.

But this time, the scene was more like a Hollywood comedy.

“Turns out,” Luros said, “the guy was the prop guy for the TV show ‘Profiler.’ ”