Appeals Court Criticizes L.A. Judge for ‘Egregious’ Misconduct

In a strongly worded opinion, a state appeals court criticized Los Angeles County Superior Court Judge James M. Ideman, saying he committed “egregious” misconduct by repeatedly questioning defense witnesses in a disparaging manner during a drug trial.

The court reversed the drug conviction and found that in his questioning, Ideman “took on the role of prosecutor rather than that of impartial judge.”

It was the second rebuke since October delivered by the appellate courts to Ideman, a retired state and federal court jurist who sits on the Los Angeles County Superior Court on special assignment. Ideman is presiding over the high-profile Sara Jane Olson bomb plot case, as well as a defense challenge to the ethnic composition of this year’s Los Angeles County Grand Jury, which has no Latinos.

In October, Ideman was sharply criticized for his handling of a civil case in U.S. District Court. The 9th Circuit Court of Appeals reinstated a personal injury lawsuit against Union Pacific railroad, finding that Ideman had allowed a law clerk to preside over a pretrial conference in the case, which the judge later dismissed.

In dismissing a methamphetamine sales conviction against Juan Santana, the 2nd District of the state Court of Appeal this week found that Ideman “repetitiously, disparagingly and prejudicially questioned defense witnesses,” in effect acting as an adversary.

As a result, the appellate court found, “the trial court created the unmistakable impression it had allied itself with the prosecution in the effort to convict Santana.”

The court found that Ideman, apparently motivated by his desire to assist the prosecution in a difficult case, “deviated so far from its duty to conduct Santana’s jury trial in a fair and impartial manner as to require reversal of the conviction.”

Reversals on the ground of judicial misconduct are rare, but members of the defense bar often complain privately about Ideman, whom they consider to strongly favor the prosecution.

Ideman has clashed often with Olson’s defense, which has protested his ruling allowing into evidence a series of crimes committed by the radical 1970s group the Symbionese Liberation Army. Olson is accused of scheming with the SLA to kill police officers during the summer of 1975 by planting pipe bombs under patrol cars. The bombs did not explode, and Olson eluded a grand jury’s indictment for more than 23 years.

Olson, once known as Kathleen Ann Soliah, built a respectable life in Minnesota as a churchgoing doctor’s wife and mother of three.

Ideman has issued a sweeping gag order barring the defendant, the lawyers and the witnesses from commenting on the case.

The Santana case, like the Olson case, relied heavily on circumstantial evidence. Wiretap evidence revealed that Santana had been at the scene of an anticipated sale of nine pounds of methamphetamine; he was arrested 10 months later after large amounts of cash and a triple beam scale were found at his home in San Bernardino County.

Ideman, according to the opinion, sharply questioned Santana’s partner in a carpet-laying business, asking why he spent so much time with the defendant working at a business that paid poorly. He also aggressively questioned Santana’s wife about her bread-baking habits after the woman testified that she used the scale to weigh flour.

When a defense attorney objected to Ideman’s pointed questioning of his witnesses, the judge responded, as quoted in the 23-page written opinion:

“You have to get used to it, counsel. I do not consider my position here to be one as a potted plant or an umpire just calling balls and strikes. It’s my duty, I believe, to bring out all the evidence that the jury needs to reach a fair and impartial verdict. I reserve the right to ask questions of witnesses.”

Defense attorneys pointed out that Ideman questioned defense witnesses far more aggressively than prosecution witnesses.

The appellate court agreed, concluding: “A court commits misconduct if it persistently makes discourteous and disparaging remarks so as to discredit the defense or create the impression it is allying itself with the prosecution.”