Stanley R. Malone Jr.; Leading L.A. Civil Rights Lawyer, Judge

Stanley R. Malone Jr., a prominent civil rights attorney and Los Angeles County Superior Court judge, has died at 76.

Malone, who served on the court for 16 years before his retirement in 1991, died Friday in Los Angeles of kidney failure. He had suffered from diabetes for many years.

In the 1950s, as a grievance counsel for the National Assn. for the Advancement of Colored People, Malone waged legal battles to integrate the Los Angeles Fire Department. He also prepared appellate briefs that helped to strike down a California initiative permitting restrictive housing, and worked on litigation to integrate Pasadena schools.

From 1964 to 1969, Malone headed the Langston Law Club, a black lawyers association, and with that group volunteered to defend indigents charged with crimes stemming from the 1965 Watts riots.

Malone spoke out against excessive bail--twice the normal amount--set for blacks arrested during the riots and said, “Negroes are being hysterically punished and prejudged because of racial overtones.”

Malone became the attorney for Marquette Frye, identified by some as the man who started the riots. The six days of rioting--at the time the largest uprising by blacks in the United States since the Civil War--began Aug. 11, 1965, after Frye was stopped by the California Highway Patrol on suspicion of drunk driving.

After a scuffle, officers arrested Frye, his mother and his stepbrother, but not before the crowd that had gathered began throwing rocks and bottles, protesting what they saw as police brutality. In the week of rioting that followed, 35 people were killed, 864 were injured and thousands were arrested. Property damage was estimated at $200 million.

Malone later called Frye, who died of pneumonia in 1986 at age 42, “a perfect example of a young black man who has been done in by society.”

A year before Frye died, Malone noted that Frye had been arrested 38 times in 20 years, mostly for minor offenses. “He became a focus as opposed to an individual,” Malone said. “He became a dubious character and, depending on how people viewed the Watts incident, an instigator.

“Certainly he wasn’t. Even if his activity did trigger something, he really wasn’t a revolutionary. He was used by activists, the Police Department, the Sheriff’s Department. It ruined whatever prospects he had for normal growth.”

A strong ally of the American Civil Liberties Union and other civil rights groups, Malone provided legal analysis of the McCone Commission report on the 1965 conflagration to help the ACLU decide its course of action.

“He was a great symbol for young African American lawyers,” said Ramona Ripston, longtime executive director of the ACLU of Southern California; she was married to Malone for 10 years.

Malone also led the Langston Law Club to work closely with the Beverly Hills Bar Assn. to educate young people about public demonstrations and other events of the 1960s.

He spearheaded a project that the two groups conducted in Hamilton High School civics classes in 1970, pairing black and white lawyers to team-teach students about laws governing demonstrations, consumer complaints, military service and schools.

“If [teenagers] know their rights and restrictions,” Malone told The Times, “they can govern themselves in a course of conduct.”

Malone also wielded influence as a board member of the Los Angeles County Bar Assn. and the Western Center on Law and Poverty and as president of Los Angeles Neighborhood Legal Services.

Malone was one of Gov. Jerry Brown’s first four appointments to the Superior Court in 1975.

In his 16 years on the bench, Malone handled several high-profile cases, including parts of the trial of Bobby Joe Maxwell for the 1978-79 “Skid Row Slasher” murders of 10 men in downtown Los Angeles.

He also vacated a six-month jail sentence imposed on former Los Angeles County Marshal Timothy Sperl for destroying radio logs concerning his deputies’ on-duty involvement in county political campaigns, ruling that Sperl was so ill that incarcerating him would be “cruel.”

Malone also presided over civil trials absolving New Yorker magazine and author John Updike of libel charges brought by Doris Day’s former manager, Jerome B. Rosenthal, and absolving the De Laurentiis Entertainment Group of responsibility in the motorcycle death of stuntman Dar Robinson during the 1986 filming of “Million Dollar Mystery” in Arizona.

Born in Washington, D.C., Malone attended USC before serving in the Army in Italy during World War II. Later he studied at Howard University and earned his law degree from Southwestern University School of Law.

In the early 1960s, he was in partnership with Loren Miller Sr. and helped Miller write “The Petitioner: The Story of the U.S. Supreme Court and the Negro.”

Malone is survived by his third wife, Rita Carr Malone; two children from his first marriage, to Gloria Malone, Musetta Malone and Stanley R. Malone III; a sister, Crystal Malone of Washington; and a stepdaughter, Cathy Ramsey.

At Malone’s request, no funeral or memorial service will be held. Any memorial contributions can be sent to the national NAACP or a local chapter.