Judge Withdraws in Case Involving Grand Jury Issue

Saying that he is a potential material witness in a legal challenge to the Los Angeles County Grand Jury, a Superior Court judge recused himself Tuesday from a murder case that has raised questions about whether Latinos and other minorities have been excluded from the panel.

The allegation, raised by a defense attorney for a man indicted on two counts of murder, has ruffled judicial feathers because the bench participates in selecting the grand jurors. Each of the county’s 428 judges can nominate two people, and a committee of about a dozen judges screens the candidates.

Superior Court Judge Thomas L. Willhite Jr. told attorneys in the case of accused killer Jaime Alejandro Mares that he, like many of his judicial colleagues, has nominated grand jurors. After closely questioning Mares’ lawyer, Victor Sherman, about the lawyer’s plans to call judges as witnesses during his challenge, Willhite stepped down.

The defense motion to disqualify all 428 Superior Court judges fell short, however, when the supervising judge of the criminal courts, Larry Paul Fidler, assigned the Mares case to a retired federal jurist who technically is not a member of the Los Angeles County bench.

Judge James M. Ideman sits as a temporary senior judge who is assigned cases to help the court handle its caseload. He has a reputation as a conservative if somewhat unpredictable jurist. Criminal defense attorneys try to avoid his courtroom, saying that the judge leans toward the prosecution.

The lawyers in the Mares case are to appear to Ideman’s court in a week to argue whether the two murder counts and a laundry list of charges stemming from a December 1998 police chase should be dismissed because of discrimination in the grand jury selection process.

Among the trials on Ideman’s docket is the 1976 bomb plot indictment of SLA fugitive Sara Jane Olson, who is accused of conspiring to kill Los Angeles police officers by planting pipe bombs under their squad cars. Ideman overruled an unrelated grand jury challenge in the Olson case, and his decision recently was upheld by the state Supreme Court.

In court papers, Sherman contends that grand jurors are chosen from a small pool of people who volunteer or are nominated by the judges. The 1999-2000 grand jury has no Latinos among its 23 members and four alternates and, according to court papers, no Latinos were nominated by the judges.

Latinos now make up more than 40% of the population of Los Angeles County, and nearly 25% of the prospective trial jurors culled from voter registration and Department of Motor Vehicles rolls.

A study commissioned by Mares’ defense shows a pattern of excluding minorities dating back to the 1980s, court papers say.

If the ethnic composition of the grand jury reflected the population, half a dozen Latinos would be on the grand jury, the study showed.

Deputy Dist. Atty. Danette Meyers said her office believes it has no standing in the grand jury challenge and referred the matter to the county counsel’s office to represent the judges.

Mares is accused of killing a man in Culver City, then leading police on a brief chase in December 1998. Los Angeles Police Officer Brian Brown was shot in the head and killed during the chase.