Maxwell E. Greenberg, 85; attorney was former L.A. police commissioner

Maxwell E. Greenberg, an attorney and former vice president of the Los Angeles Board of Police Commissioners, died of natural causes Tuesday at his home in Bel-Air. He was 85.

Greenberg served on the Police Commission from 1980 to 1984 as an appointee of Mayor Tom Bradley. As national chairman of the Anti-Defamation League of B’nai B’rith, Greenberg was considered a strong advocate of civil liberties who could help Bradley press for changes in the Los Angeles Police Department run by then-Chief Daryl F. Gates.

During his tenure, Greenberg acted on a number of controversial issues.

In 1982, he helped investigate Gates’ statement that some blacks were more susceptible to death from chokeholds than “normal people” because of anatomical differences. Gates made the remark in a Times interview in which he discussed the disproportionate number of blacks who died after being subjected to the carotid chokehold, which the department had classified as a medium level of force.

Greenberg said the number of deaths suggested that the chokeholds were more dangerous than previously thought and supported the commission’s decision to place a six-month ban on their use, except when circumstances warranted deadly force.

In 1983, Greenberg voted with the five-member commission to disband the Police Department’s Public Disorder and Intelligence Division, which had been accused of spying on law-abiding groups and individuals, including police commissioners and other civic leaders.

The commission later voted 3 to 2 to support a $1.8-million out-of-court settlement of a lawsuit by the American Civil Liberties Union that accused the department of illegal political spying. Greenberg was one of the two commissioners who opposed the settlement, portions of which Gates had also reportedly argued against.

Greenberg was a Los Angeles native and a graduate of UCLA and Harvard Law School, where he edited the law review. During World War II, he served in the Army as a lieutenant.

He opened a private law practice in Los Angeles in the early 1950s. From 1969 to 1970, he appeared on the Peabody Award-winning public television program “The Advocates,” on which attorneys debated issues such as abortion, the use of marijuana and offshore oil drilling.

After his firm dissolved in the mid-1980s, Greenberg joined the Century City firm of Jeffer, Mangels, Butler & Marmaro as a senior partner.

He is survived by his wife of 26 years, Asha Saund Greenberg; a daughter, Jan Levine; sons Richard, David and Jonathan; and seven grandchildren.

Services will be held at 11 a.m. today at Hillside Memorial Park and Mortuary in Los Angeles. Memorial donations may be sent to the Anti-Defamation League.

elaine.woo@latimes.com