Roger Arnebergh, 94; L.A. City Attorney Studied Law Through Extension School

Roger Arnebergh, who served as Los Angeles city attorney for 20 years and was so widely respected that he rarely faced opposition on election day, has died. He was 94.

Arnebergh, a high school dropout who eventually earned a law degree from an extension school, died Jan. 25 in Canoga Park of natural causes.

The veteran official, who saw himself more as a lawyer than a politician, first won office in 1953. He was endorsed by City Atty. Ray L. Chesebro, who was retiring, and by a plebiscite of the Los Angeles County Bar Assn.

Arnebergh, who had served as one of Chesebro’s assistant prosecutors for 12 years, responded to the plebiscite by saying, “It is indeed gratifying that the men and women of my profession, the judges and lawyers who have worked with me for years and are in the best position to evaluate my qualifications for the office of city attorney, have so overwhelmingly endorsed me.”

Through five more elections, Arnebergh always said he opted to seek an additional term only at the urging of lawyers and civic and business leaders, who would sign petitions by the thousands. He was rarely opposed and usually won at the primary election.

But local politics became more contentious. In 1973 Arnebergh, then 63, faced heated opposition from a young Westside attorney, Burt Pines, 34, and another then little-known lawyer, Ira Reiner.

Although Arnebergh had stressed the nonpartisanship of the city attorney’s office, he was known as a conservative Republican who went to the 1964 GOP national convention as a Barry Goldwater delegate. Pines, a liberal Democrat, campaigned aggressively while Arnebergh continued his usual rounds of speeches to business and civic groups.

Pines sought to prioritize prosecution of polluters and perpetrators of consumer fraud, and he stressed their age difference by saying Arnebergh was “slow, apathetic.” Arnebergh continued to champion his policy of prosecuting all misdemeanors equally.

The Times endorsed the veteran’s reelection in 1973, editorializing that over 20 years Arnebergh “has proved a sound administrator. His tenure has been noted for his fair enforcement of the city’s civil and criminal codes. He has qualified by record and experience for another term.”

But Pines forced Arnebergh into a runoff and won 58% of the vote to end Arnebergh’s political career. Reiner, who supported Pines in the general election, later won election as Los Angeles County district attorney.

During his long tenure, Arnebergh oversaw an office that more than doubled from 76 lawyers to 185 attorneys and generally won praise for evenhandedly resolving disputes among city departments, enforcing misdemeanor offenses and scolding city officials if they closed meetings he believed were to be legally open to the public.

In 1961, Arnebergh generated unaccustomed media attention when he publicly castigated Henry Miller’s controversial “Tropic of Cancer” as “latrine literature.” The book, largely an account of Miller’s escapades in Bohemian Paris, was banned in the U.S. for 27 years. But by 1961, federal and state court rulings sanctioned sales, a post office ban was revoked and a U.S. edition was becoming a bestseller.

Arnebergh, however, backed the Los Angeles Police Department vice squad’s decision to prosecute a Hollywood bookseller for offering “Tropic of Cancer” under a new section of the California Penal Code defining and prohibiting obscenity. The section required evidence that a seller know the literature’s contents, and the accused Hollywood man told the purchasing officer that he had read Miller’s book and knew it was “very obscene.”

In approving the prosecution, Arnebergh announced: “That such a book is today a so-called bestseller is indeed a sad commentary on the morals and tastes of the portion of the reading public which buys it.”

Despite the ill-fated city attorney action, Miller’s book continued to circulate in Los Angeles as well as across the country.

Yet for the most part, Arnebergh revered books -- particularly books on the law.

A high school dropout at 15, Arnebergh told The Times shortly after his election: “I attended a book auction some years ago and for no known reason bought a batch of lawbooks. At the time I was working at a job which had nothing to do with law. Having bought the books, I figured I ought to get my money’s worth so, naturally, I took up the law!”

He had completed his high school requirements at night school and studied law through LaSalle Extension -- an unusual route for the city’s future top lawyer. With a grin, he would say, “got my degree by mail.”

The lean, 6-foot-1-inch Arnebergh played in junior veterans’ tennis tournaments, and a Times reporter once noted that with the dark glasses Arnebergh wore on the court, he looked “like a movie star.”

Arnebergh published a book of 72 verses in 1959, “Reaching for the Moon and Other Poems.”

“It’s just what I like to do in my idle time, and I hope some others may find an interest in it,” he said. Subjects ranged from his mother’s teachings to City Hall coffee breaks.

In 1959, Arnebergh was elected president of the National Institute of Municipal Law Officers, made up of 1,100 cities in all 50 states.

After his political ouster, he practiced law privately in Van Nuys, stepping back into the limelight briefly in 1991 as part of Citizens for Integrity and Viability in the City Charter. The group, which supported beleaguered former Police Chief Daryl F. Gates, opposed changes in selection, removal and tenure of future police chiefs.

Services for Arnebergh were private. Information on survivors was unavailable.

Memorial donations can be sent to the Roger Arnebergh Memorial Scholarship Fund at West Valley Christian Academy, 7911 Winnetka Ave., Winnetka, CA 91306.