Judge Rejects State’s Bid to Replace Her in Parole Case

A Superior Court judge rejected a bid Monday by the state attorney general’s office to remove her from hearing the parole case of convicted killer Robert Rosenkrantz.

In a written order, Los Angeles County Superior Court Judge Kathryne Ann Stoltz dismissed Gov. Gray Davis’ peremptory challenge as “untimely.” Further paving the way for the Calabasas man’s possible release, Stoltz also scheduled a bail hearing for him in her Van Nuys courtroom on Friday.

“The judge is following the law, and the case will go forward in her court,” said Rosenkrantz’s attorney, Rowan Klein, who called Stoltz fair.

But the state attorney general’s office, which represented Davis in trying to move the case to a different judge, disagreed and vowed to appeal.

“We think [Stoltz] issued her ruling in error, and we think the governor was denied his right to a preemptory challenge in this matter,” said Nathan Barankin, a spokesman for the attorney general’s office.

At issue is whether Davis, whom Klein sued last month in an amended lawsuit filed in Stoltz’s court, is a new party to the case. The amended lawsuit alleged that Davis, who has repeatedly denied Rosenkrantz parole, had acted unconstitutionally.

According to California law, new parties to a case generally have 10 days to file a peremptory challenge. But Stoltz ruled that the governor was not a “newly added party” because the amended lawsuit was the continuation of one filed earlier by Rosenkrantz against the state Board of Prison Terms. The panelists, who decide parole matters, are Davis appointees, the judge noted.

Parole advocates have sought to make Rosenkrantz, 33, a test of the governor’s stance against paroling convicted killers. Since taking office, Davis has allowed the parole of only one convicted killer in more than 30 cases he has reviewed.

In 1985, Rosenkrantz fatally shot a schoolmate, 17-year-old Steven Redman of Calabasas, who had exposed him as a homosexual to Rosenkrantz’s parents the week before. Rosenkrantz was convicted of second-degree murder and sentenced to 17 years to life in prison.

Stoltz has previously made two rulings favoring Rosenkrantz, who has expressed remorse and by all accounts has been a model inmate. In 1999, she ordered the state parole board to find him suitable for release and later ordered his immediate release.