Baca Backs Ex-Justice as Watchdog

In a move that already has stirred controversy among local civil libertarians, Los Angeles County Sheriff Lee Baca confirmed Friday that he wants to name former California Supreme Court Justice Armand Arabian as the first inspector general of the county’s sprawling and deeply troubled jail system.

According to the new sheriff, Arabian, currently a defense lawyer and a “rent-a-judge” in private practice in the San Fernando Valley, approached him and expressed an interest in the watchdog position. Saying that he was impressed with the former justice’s credentials, Baca has met with most members of the Board of Supervisors to see if they would support his plans to hire Arabian on a part-time basis for an amount that has yet to be determined.

“His credentials are impeccable,” Baca said. “When you have a Supreme Court justice who is interested, there are very few people who can compete with that.”

Some civil rights advocates questioned whether Arabian is sufficiently appreciative of individual rights and due process issues to fill such a post. A close political ally of former Republican Gov. George Deukmejian, Arabian was one of the most unbendingly conservative justices to sit on the state’s high court in an era when successive GOP governors pushed the composition of the state bench dramatically to the right, his critics say.

“I just never really thought of him as a strong advocate of civil rights or constitutional rights,” said law professor Gerald F. Uelmen of the University of Santa Clara, a leading academic authority on the state’s high court. “He was pretty strong in terms of enforcing the death penalty and not very demanding in the standards of competency for defense lawyers.”

Ramona Ripston, executive director of the American Civil Liberties Union of Southern California, said she had no firm opinion regarding Arabian’s suitability. But she said she felt the members of the Board of Supervisors--and not Baca--should be the ones to pick the top candidate for the job.

“You can’t have the inspector general being beholden to the sheriff for appointment,” Ripston said.

Attorney Stephen Yagman, who has litigated a number of lawsuits involving the jails, said: “My sense of Mr. Arabian is, as a general matter, he is very much in favor of human rights. But when it comes down to the specific human rights, he has no feeling at all.”

But former Los Angeles County Dist. Atty. and veteran Republican Party activist Robert Philibosian disagreed.

“If you are talking about someone like Stephen Yagman and the ACLU, Justice Arabian is a very conservative justice,” said Philibosian, who has worked with Arabian for many years.

“He is not going to go out and make up new rights.” But Philibosian said Arabian “has sworn to uphold the Constitution.”

In that cause, Philibosian said, Arabian has employed “a very keen intellect and tremendously broad range of knowledge.”

Baca announced after he was elected sheriff Nov. 3 that he wanted to bring in an independent watchdog to track problems in the jail system. In recent years, the jail system has been plagued by a variety of woes, including brutality and the over-detention and erroneous release of hundreds of inmates.

“The public has lost confidence in the managing of the jails,” Baca said in an interview. “There is a need for our county jail system to have a person who will look at everything and speak candidly about the issues and the problems.

“What [Arabian] recommends to me and the Board of Supervisors will be viewed as being very independent and very credible.”

Although the supervisors contract with attorney Merrick Bobb to look into problems in the Sheriff’s Department, Baca said he believes that Bobb “has too much to do in other sides of the sheriff’s operations.”

“We are not excluding him from looking at the jail,” Baca said. “The inspector general would be in addition to Merrick Bobb.”

The new sheriff said Friday that he is still trying to work out the details of his proposal to hire Arabian. And, in fact, he said he has yet to formally approach Arabian with the job.

Although Arabian said in an interview that he would be interested in serving as inspector general of the jail system, he said he would have to know more before accepting the position.

“It’s a great idea, but you have to tell me what the parameters are,” Arabian said. “I have been a public servant for a lot of years. I know they need help. . . . They need someone to take a look at what’s happening. I’m appalled anyone would be released [from jail] unappropriately.”

Arabian’s focus on the handful of erroneous releases known to have occurred in recent years was somewhat puzzling, critics say. One of the principal problems plaguing the system during that period was the illegal detention of hundreds of inmates after their court-ordered terms of incarceration had ended.

In fact, in 1997 the county has paid out nearly a quarter of a million dollars to forestall the filing of civil claims by inmates held for as long as 260 days after their legal release date.

Supervisors--who must allocate funds to pay for the position--would have final say over who is selected for the job, Baca said. Supervisor Mike Antonovich said he would support offering the position to Arabian, who served on the California Supreme Court from 1990 to February 1996.

Supervisor Zev Yaroslavsky said it is too early to settle on a particular candidate. “An inspector general who is appointed by the person who heads the department that is to be inspected may not be the best structure,” Yaroslavsky said.

The supervisor said he told Baca this last week and the sheriff agreed. Yaroslavsky said the board and the sheriff need to decide how the office would be structured before anyone should be named.

Arabian’s most notable court opinions have been in the area of medicine, according to Uelmen. Arabian wrote a pair of opinions in 1993 that gave guidance to physicians on issues of informed consent. In one of those opinions, Arabian said doctors do not need to give dying patients statistical probabilities.

In one of what Uelmen called his “worst” decisions, Arabian upheld the death sentence of the so-called Trailside Killer in Northern California despite a trial error that may have influenced the jury.

In that case, the trial judge had ruled that the error was serious enough to warrant a new trial, but Arabian wrote the majority opinion upholding the verdict.

Times staff writer Nicholas Riccardi contributed to this story.