Melvin Grover, 80; Blunt L.A. Judge

Melvin Bernard Grover, a blunt-spoken former Los Angeles Superior Court judge who was transferred from criminal to civil cases after a highly publicized squabble with the district attorney’s office over evidence and courtroom conduct, has died. He was 80.

Grover, who served on the court from 1983 to 1997, died Thursday in Los Angeles.

Among the civil cases he presided over in Pasadena Superior Court was the vitriolic 1993 trial of a suit by Lockheed workers over chemical injuries suffered in building the F-117A Stealth fighter jet. Jury deliberations lasted 12 weeks, only to end in a hung jury and mistrial.

“I feel terrible,” Grover told The Times that spring day eight years ago. “I spent 10 . . . months of my life on this thing.”

Known for fairness and humor as well as his shoot-from-the-hip comments, Grover moved to the Pasadena court under duress in 1985 after nearly three years hearing criminal cases in Van Nuys Superior Court. There he ran into a buzz saw of opposition from deputy district attorneys who claimed he favored defendants, blocked key evidence and was rude, telling one deputy: “Don’t weasel all the time. At least one time be a man.”

The prosecutors began “papering” Grover with a stream of so-called affidavits of prejudice to prevent him from hearing their cases. In one often-mentioned case, they complained that he refused to allow a 3-year-old girl to testify that she saw her father shoot her mother, resulting in dismissal of the murder case. The judge said that the girl was too young and that her testimony would not be credible.

Most judges faced with such opposition from prosecutors simply accept reassignment to the often-preferred civil calendar. Grover, however, fought back, rejecting the affidavits and continuing to hold onto cases. Ironically, when he finally agreed to move to a Pasadena civil courtroom, it became known that he had quietly been trying to get a civil assignment since his appointment to the bench.

“My friends joke that I had to do it the hard way,” he told The Times shortly after the transfer. “I didn’t want to be forced out of Van Nuys, but I wanted to be out of criminal. You can hear only so many rape cases, so many child molestation cases. . . . Civil law is definitely my strength.”

But civil law was not where he began. After serving in the Army during World War II, he became a sergeant in the Santa Barbara Police Department and then joined the California Highway Patrol. As a CHP officer, he got a law degree from Southwestern Law School and began a 20-year civil law practice representing insurance companies.

“I’m a Republican, a former police officer and a little bit right of Attila the Hun,” Grover told The Times in 1985, laughing about prosecutors’ assertion that he was a liberal prejudiced toward defendants. “I’m sure not a bleeding heart.”

Perhaps indicative of his even-handedness in applying the law, Grover considered himself a conservative but was appointed to the bench by liberal Democratic Gov. Jerry Brown and sworn in by Chief Justice of California Rose Elizabeth Bird.

Older than many of his colleagues, Grover was newly retired from law practice and was in his 60s when he took the bench. He claimed the controversy with prosecutors was related.

“In my day, everyone learned the hard way to respect the court, respect the judge,” he said. “It’s like the Army. You may not like your commanding officer, but you salute him just the same. I found that lacking in the prosecutors who came before me. . . . They tended to act like little prima donnas.

“This whole thing was over who was going to control the courtroom: me or the district attorney,” he said. “I’m from the old school, and I believe the judge is the one in control.”

Born in Aspen, Colo., “Barney” Grover grew up in Van Nuys, and earlier this year celebrated his 80th birthday with classmates from his Van Nuys High School Class of 1938. He earned a bachelor’s degree at UC Santa Barbara before going into the Army in 1942.

Widowed in 1994, Grover is survived by his son, Jim, and three grandsons, of Pasadena.

The family has asked that, instead of flowers, donations and prayers be offered for victims of the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks.