Judge Rules on Cases While Awaiting Own Fate

It’s a busy Tuesday morning in Superior Court Judge Patrick Couwenberg’s sixth-floor Norwalk courtroom.

A short, stocky woman on probation for a drug offense insists through her public defender that her positive test for cocaine is a mistake that was caused by prescription medication. She adds that she’s been unable to perform any community service because of physical ailments.

Deputy Dist. Atty. Joe Markus counters that the woman, a mother of three, simply isn’t telling the truth. “She is using cocaine,” he says. “Doesn’t anyone care she has a 1-year-old child and she is using cocaine?”

Couwenberg listens intently to the debate and proceeds to question why the woman entered into a plea bargain involving community service if physical ailments prevent her from doing the work. Then he cuts to the heart of the matter, saying it is obvious the woman has used drugs.

As the defendant bustles out of the courtroom, asked to return in a month with any pertinent medical records, her husband protests. No, he says, she is not lying.

The issue of what is the truth and who is telling it is fascinating in the 55-year-old judge’s courtroom these days.

Last month, a three-judge state panel found that Couwenberg had engaged in willful misconduct by persistently providing false information about his academic credentials and by falsely claiming to be a CIA agent.

The panel found that Couwenberg made up tales of Vietnam War exploits to judges and attorneys that eventually helped persuade Gov. Pete Wilson to appoint him to the bench in 1997. When confronted with the truth, the panel determined, Couwenberg swore under oath he was in Laos for the CIA in the 1960s and carried out another mission in 1984 while big game hunting in Africa.

During the panel’s five-day hearing in February, a CIA officer testified that the judge had never served with the agency and that, contrary to Couwenberg’s claims, no other outfit operated secretly in Laos in 1968 and 1969.

At one point, Couwenberg admitted that he was not a Purple Heart-decorated Vietnam War veteran, did not receive a master’s degree in psychology from Cal State Los Angeles and never attended Caltech or Loyola Law School. Rather, he served in the U.S. Naval Reserve and attended Chaffey Junior College, Cal Poly Pomona and La Verne College of Law.

He said that many of the inaccuracies were the result of his wife typing the application, because he had lied to her about his background two decades earlier. He continued to insist, however, that his version of his wartime actions was true.

Couwenberg’s attorneys and a medical expert argued that any false statements were the result of a psychological disorder stemming from his childhood in a prison camp in war-torn Java.

The condition, known as pseudologica fantastica, causes an unintentional mixing of fact with fiction to protect self-esteem, they said. However, the panel determined that it was no excuse for Couwenberg’s willful misconduct, a violation of ethics that can be grounds for removal from the bench.

Despite its findings, the panel’s action was just one step in the state’s glacially paced disciplinary process for judges.

The panel could not recommend Couwenberg’s dismissal, but found that grounds exist for the State Commission on Judicial Performance to consider removing or otherwise punishing him.

The commission, which is responsible for overseeing judicial discipline, has been investigating Couwenberg since 1998, and no decision is expected before next month. Even then, a decision to remove him could be appealed to the state Supreme Court.

The case has led Gov. Gray Davis to require all judicial applications to be signed under penalty of perjury. A commission that checks out applicants has also been given access to State Bar records for the first time.

But as the wheels of justice grind on, life goes on as usual in Couwenberg’s courtroom.

The former prosecutor, who wears a graying beard and a haircut that makes him look like a scholarly Wolfman Jack, shows no signs of the turmoil that surrounds his tenure. Each day, he handles his normal schedule of drug, theft and murder cases. The father of six even makes occasional quips, telling one public defender, “a good P.D. doesn’t need a file.”

His attention to the tiniest of details and his neatly kept desk suggest none of the chaos he said led to the errors on his judicial application.

“He’s a good judge. Ask any defense attorney or prosecutor who has appeared before him,” says H. Elizabeth Harris, a defense attorney. “Unfortunately, it looks like his ticket is going to be punched.”

Meanwhile, worried relatives of defendants pack the courtroom unaware of the judge’s circumstances. Many of the accused are in custody. Wearing orange and blue jail uniforms, they are led into the courtroom by a sheriff’s deputy. There are drug possession defendants, probation violators and a third-strike candidate, as well as a man who has pleaded guilty as an accessory in the killing of a woman.

A mother of one defendant considering whether to accept a 32-month sentence as part of a plea bargain is standing outside Couwenberg’s courtroom waiting.

“I’d have never thought it,” she says when told of the state panel’s hearings. “He seems like a good judge. Very fair.”