Public Defenders Reach an Accord With Court Officials

Los Angeles County deputy public defenders have reached an informal agreement with Superior Court administrators over a judge’s decision to reassign criminal cases to other defense lawyers in an effort to expedite trials.

The understanding balances public defenders’ concerns about the rights of their clients with the court’s determination to hold to its trial delay reduction program, according to officials with the court and public defender’s office.

Two weeks ago, deputy public defenders took the apparently unprecedented step of seeking the disqualification of Superior Court Judge John Reid in numerous criminal cases after he moved to reassign defense attorneys in about 20 proceedings rather than risk delays in trials. They argued that the action by Reid, who is the supervising judge of the criminal division, was an unwarranted intrusion on attorney-client relationships and threatened to undermine the rights of criminal defendants to adequate legal counsel.

But after the motions were filed, the judge and Presiding Judge Robert Parkin met with Public Defender Mike Judge and Assistant Public Defender Robert Kalunian in an effort to resolve the conflict. Since that meeting, no widespread dispute has arisen over deputy public defender cases being repeatedly reassigned to courtrooms by Reid, who is a former deputy district attorney.

“I think the matter is resolved,” Kalunian said.

Last week, officials said, a meeting of deputy public defenders downtown ended with an understanding that they would no longer repeatedly file motions against Reid so long as he demonstrated more concern for the rights of defendants by not reassigning attorneys.

Said Kalunian: “Although the court is still committed to its trial delay reduction program, [judges Parkin and Reid] said they would be more considerate of our lawyers’ concerns . . . and the issue of interfering with attorney-client relationships.”

Parkin agreed with that assessment.

“It is, I suppose, inevitable that public defenders will come up with cases [that have scheduling conflicts.] And . . . we kind of agreed to do a little better job of case management,” Parkin said.

In addition, he said, he and Reid agreed to be more mindful to the volume of cases handled by deputy public defenders. “The public defenders have problems too. They have big caseloads . . . [and] we have to be sensitive to that,” he said.

Nonetheless, Parkin said, he and Reid are determined to hold to the court’s program to reduce, whenever possible, the number of criminal trials that are delayed.

“We have made some great strides, I think, in terms of delays in criminal trials,” said Parkin, who noted that two years ago, the backlog of criminal cases led to almost 600 being sent to the downtown civil courthouse for trials.

By taking steps to expedite cases and bring criminal proceedings to trial in 60 days, the number of cases sent to the civil courthouse dropped by more than 100 in 1996. And through this October, Parkin said, only 54 criminal cases had to be sent to the civil courthouse for trials.

“Our . . . program has produced some very positive results,” Parkin said. “In addition to not impacting the civil trial calendar, it helps to avoid overcrowding in jails.”

Reid could not be reached for comment.