Court Feud Leads to Release of Suspects

Los Angeles County judges and prosecutors blamed one another Wednesday for a post-holiday snafu in which dozens of people arrested for serious crimes were freed when the criminal justice system couldn’t process them quickly enough.

Acting on the orders of supervising judges, a court commissioner refused to keep his courtroom open after closing time on May 28 to conduct arraignments for felony suspects arrested over the Memorial Day weekend.

People taken into custody after an arrest must be released if they are not given an arraignment, where the charges are explained to them, within 48 hours, prosecutors contend. Judges disagree, saying authorities could have legally held the suspects another day.

Most of the suspects either returned to court voluntarily the next day as ordered by the court, or were held on other allegations. But several -- estimates range from 12 to 20, including a carjacker suspected of attempting a robbery since his release -- remain at large, police and prosecutors say. All of them would have been eligible for release on bail.

The dispute reflects a growing deterioration in the relationship between prosecutors in the Los Angeles County district attorney’s office and supervisory judges in the Los Angeles County Superior Court.

For two years, outgoing Supervising Criminal Court Judge Dan T. Oki and Judge David Wesley, who will replace Oki on July 7, have been pressing the district attorney’s office to be more prompt in filing cases and in preparing for trial and other court proceedings, including arraignments.

This latest imbroglio came to a climax Tuesday night, when the directors of the 700-member Los Angeles County Deputy District Attorneys Assn. voted to ask the California Commission on Judicial Performance to investigate whether Oki, Wesley and a third judge, Carol H. Rehm, failed to carry out their judicial duties by permitting the post-holiday release. Rehm, who will soon replace Wesley as assistant supervising judge, was involved in the decision not to continue the arraignments past the normal closing time. All three declined to comment.

Dist. Atty. Steve Cooley said, “Unilateral and arbitrary decisions that tend to endanger the public are unacceptable.”

Deputy Dist. Atty. Steven J. Ipsen, president of the prosecutors group, said, “The reason that [the judges’] decision was so shocking is that 99% of the other judges would rather walk through glass barefoot before letting a dangerous person back out on the streets.

“You don’t endanger the public just to teach the district attorney’s office a lesson.”

Allan Parachini, court spokesman, said the judges believe prosecutors are unfairly characterizing the problem. He said the D.A. is expecting the courts to bear the costs of the prosecutors’ “inability to handle their own workload.”

Noting the tight budget constraints of the court, he said, “We just aren’t able to do that.”

The post-holiday release on May 28 was caused by a problem that frequently occurs after a long weekend, when the court has to process three days of arrests instead of just two. Instead of the 40 or 50 cases arraigned on normal days in the downtown courthouse, there were more than 100.

About 3 p.m., Oki, the supervising judge, notified the district attorney’s office that court would close at 4:30 sharp, regardless of whether all the suspects had been arraigned.

Ipsen said the judges could have opened a second courtroom to handle the backlog, but they rejected the suggestion.

Oki offered to keep the courtroom open past closing time if the district attorney’s office would pay the overtime costs for the bailiffs, court clerks and other clerical staff to remain on duty. Ipsen said that offer was made at the eleventh hour, leaving no time for the district attorney’s office to consider it.

When the day ended, 76 felony suspects, including people accused of robbery, assaults, domestic assaults and drug offenses, had not been arraigned. Oki ordered each to return to court the following day.

Prosecutors said all of them could have been released. But the sheriff’s office held on to about half by finding other offenses to keep them behind bars for another day. Many of the others reported back to court.