Alan Buckner, 65; Judge Issued Unprecedented Ban on Public Gatherings by Gang Members

Alan G. Buckner, a Los Angeles County Superior Court judge who in 1997 issued a precedent-setting ban on public gatherings by several members of the notorious 18th Street gang, has died. He was 65.

Buckner, who had suffered from heart problems and prostate cancer, died Dec. 12 of a self-inflicted gunshot wound to the head. On Monday, Los Angeles County coroner’s investigator Selena Barros told The Times the death had been ruled a suicide.

The judge’s order against gang members, the most restrictive ever sought in Los Angeles at that time, was the first issued after the U.S. Supreme Court in June 1997 upheld the constitutionality of a civil injunction against a San Jose street gang barring virtually all gatherings of its members.

The high court ruling broadly upheld the rights of communities to control street violence through severe restrictions on public association by gang members, and Buckner was quick to implement the new power.

“You guys are making a mess of things,” Buckner told gang members July 11, 1997, as he issued the injunction in a public nuisance suit filed by the city. Then-City Atty. James K. Hahn attended the proceedings and said later that Buckner’s order would give the city a “legal sword” to use against gangs.

Directing the injunction at 18 members of the 18th Street gang, Buckner prohibited more than three associating in public view at any time, imposed a nighttime curfew on juvenile members and barred all of them from acting as lookouts to warn of approaching police and from harassing, threatening or intimidating residents. The order applied to the 17-square-block Jefferson Park neighborhood roughly south of the Santa Monica Freeway and east of La Cienega Boulevard.

Before his appointment to the bench by Gov. Pete Wilson in 1995, Buckner spent 29 years as a civil litigator, primarily handling cases against insurance companies. When he first became a judge, he heard criminal cases for a time but was more at home in the civil courts.

Born in Philadelphia, Buckner earned his undergraduate degree at UCLA before serving in the Army Military Police Corps in the early 1960s.

After leaving the Army, he went back to UCLA to obtain his law degree.

Well-liked by his judicial colleagues, Buckner has been remembered during the last week for his willingness to offer support and advice and for his patriotism and interest in military history.

“He actually wrote a book about World War II, about the bombing of Pearl Harbor,” Superior Court Judge Victor E. Chavez told The Daily Journal, “but he never got it published. He was an expert in that whole saga.”

Buckner is survived by his wife, Irene; two children from a former marriage, Brian Buckner and Julie Buckner-Levy; and three grandchildren.

The family has asked that any memorial donations be made to the U.S. Army Relief Fund.