Unabomb Judge Considered Cautious and Unflappable

SACRAMENTO — He’s a son of South-Central Los Angeles, an inner-city kid who glided over life’s obstacles like the hurdler he once was at Washington High.

Garland Burrell Jr. chose the law as his work, and from modest beginnings crept quietly upward to one of the most powerful perches in the legal world--federal judge, appointed for life. He is the only African American to hold such a post in the state’s eastern judicial district, which stretches from Bakersfield to the Oregon line.

Burrell is 50 now and facing what may be the trickiest test of his career--the Unabomber trial.

From the painstaking chore of finding impartial jurors to the stream of complex legal motions and the trial itself--expected to last three months--shouldering the sensational case will be a weighty task.

Those who know Burrell pronounce the judge well-suited for the job. Although he is the junior member on the federal bench in Sacramento, Burrell is unflappable, meticulous and cautious, almost to a fault, they say.

In a trial as complicated as this, Burrell no doubt will make a few rookie mistakes, attorneys say. But there will be no big blunders, no lawyer theatrics, no bickering in his court. Each side will get ample time to air its case. The jury will be carefully instructed. The defendant will be treated with respect.

“There is no way this will be a three-ring circus like O.J.,” said Donald Heller, a defense attorney who tried a major securities case in Burrell’s court two years ago. “Judge Burrell just wouldn’t let that happen. He’s in control.”

But unlike the authoritarian Judge Richard P. Matsch in the Oklahoma City bombing case, Burrell is gracious, almost indulgent, of those who land in his court.

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Humbler than many who wear the jurist’s robe, Burrell exudes dignity and defines decorum. But stuffy he is not. During jury selection, the spry, bearded Burrell often bounds down from his judicial platform to question a juror eye-to-eye from the floor.

And when a knot of spectators clustered in the courtroom aisle one recent day, searching fruitlessly for seats, Burrell invited them to inhabit the jury box. “We’ve got room for you,” he said cheerfully. “You don’t have to leave.”

What criticism tumbles his way comes mainly in the category of pace. Burrell’s is slow, very slow.

When he’s on the bench, pondering a motion, his concentration suggests a chess player, which Burrell happens to be. In the late 1970s, when he was a prosecutor in the Sacramento district attorney’s office, Burrell spent breaks during trials hovered over his chessboard.

“It was his way of unwinding,” recalled Samuel Jackson, Sacramento’s city attorney and an old friend of Burrell’s.

Sacramento lawyer Robert Holley, a fan of Burrell, says the judge reminds him of a freeway driver who is traveling 55 mph in a crowd of motorists who prefer to go 70.

“He’s not a slow thinker, he’s just extremely careful,” Holley said. “If you’re someone in a hurry, with a hundred other places to be, that gets frustrating.”

While a few attorneys call his deliberate style “maddening,” Holley and others said it simply reflects Burrell’s desire to get things right.

“Justice,” said Sacramento attorney Malcolm Segal, “is sometimes a slow thing.”

Though devoted to his duties on the bench, Garland Ellis Burrell is not a one-dimensional man. Married with four children, he spends his spare hours with family and on activities related to his church, where he has served as a deacon.

Before becoming a judge, Burrell volunteered as a mentor in local schools. And one of his passions is the martial art of taekwondo.

“Let me tell you, he is fast,” said Jackson, who calls Burrell “Nighthawk” for the diligent work habits he displayed when both men were in the district attorney’s office. “And his balance? Agility? Terrific.”

Speed and agility were qualities that shined brightly in Burrell’s youth, when he was the all-city champion high hurdler during his senior year at Washington High School. It’s been 32 years, but his track coach, Bill Pothoff, hasn’t forgotten him. In fact, Burrell’s picture hangs on Pothoff’s wall.

“You remember the good ones,” Pothoff said, describing Burrell as a “delight” and so dedicated he would climb the school fence on Saturdays to train alone.

Pothoff says he’ll never forget the first time Burrell, who had been a sprinter and high jumper, asked the coach to let him try the hurdles.

“I shot the gun, he went off and my jaw just dropped,” Pothoff said. “The time was just unbelievable.” Does the coach remember it? “Of course--9.1 [seconds].”

Burrell was an only child. His father, Garland Sr., owned--still owns--a liquor store in South-Central Los Angeles. Surrounded by neighborhood trouble, Burrell managed to steer a clean course through boyhood, guided in part by his grandmother, Lucille Burrell. Now 97, she said he was “a quiet, gentle boy, one who liked to stay to himself.”

He was also busy, working at his aunt’s beauty salon, at a local market (where he met his wife of 25 years, Karen), as a brick tender for his stepfather, a mason, and later as a delivery boy for Chicken Delight.

“He was always focused on a goal,” his father recalled in an interview. “And even with all those awards he won in track, he was never one to brag.”

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After a two-year stint in the Marine Corps, Burrell went to the University of Nevada, Reno, on an athletic scholarship. There, he read a book that rearranged his priorities--”The Autobiography of Malcolm X.”

“[Malcolm X] educated himself in jail,” Burrell told the Sacramento Bee in 1992 in the only interview he has ever granted. “It struck me that if he could educate himself in jail, I certainly should be able to educate myself in school.”

Running track suddenly seemed less important, and Burrell returned to Los Angeles, enrolling at Cal State L.A. He earned a bachelor’s degree in sociology, then a master’s in social work at Washington University in St. Louis. Next came a law degree from California Western School of Law in San Diego.

Aside from a short spell in private practice, most of Burrell’s career was spent with government agencies in Sacramento--the district attorney, the city attorney and the U.S. attorney. Bosses praised his work ethic and his knack for crafting settlements.

“He was a star,” said James Jackson, Sacramento’s former city attorney, “but one who avoided the spotlight.”

The spotlight found him in 1992, when President Bush appointed Burrell--a Republican--to the bench. Before donning his robe, Burrell spent days sitting in the backs of federal courtrooms with a notebook, gathering hints on how to handle his new job.

Five years have passed, and now Burrell is questioning as many as 600 jurors in search of a dozen who can give the Unabomber suspect, Theodore J. Kaczynski, a fair trial. Each juror filled out a lengthy questionnaire; Burrell--in a move that surprised attorneys in the case--read every one.

He also guaranteed the prospective jurors anonymity during the trial. This drew criticism from the media because it came before a court hearing on the matter.

More bumps in the road could, of course, surface for Burrell during the trial, which will include a range of delicate issues--among them, the question of Kaczynski’s mental state.

And, if a guilty verdict is returned, there will be a penalty phase in which Kaczynski could be sentenced to death despite pleas for mercy from his brother, David, who turned him in to the FBI.

Lucille Burrell, who looks forward eagerly to her grandson’s telephone calls, says: “I pray for him every day. I know he’s working so hard. I know he’ll do the right thing.”

(BEGIN TEXT OF INFOBOX / INFOGRAPHIC)

Profile: U.S. District Judge Garland Burrell Jr.

Appointed in 1992, Burrell is overseeing the trial of Theodore J. Kaczynski, the suspect in the Unabomber case. A native of Los Angeles, Burrell is the only African American on the federal bench in his district. Attorneys describe him as cautious, unflappable and gracious. The Unabomber trial is Burrell’s first capital case.

* Born: July 4, 1947

* Residence: Sacramento

* Education: Bachelor of arts degree in sociology, Cal State L.A. Master’s degree in social work, Washington University, St. Louis. Law degree, California Western School of Law, San Diego.

* Career highlights: Began legal work as a deputy district attorney in Sacramento. Moved to the city attorney’s office and went on to work as an assistant U.S. attorney, completing his tour as chief of the civil division. A Republican, he was appointed to the bench by President George Bush.

* Interests: Chess, reading, taekwondo

* Family: Married, four children