Opinion ID: 1132505
Heading Depth: 1
Heading Rank: 13

Heading: authorizing release of confiscated guns for sale by defendants

Text: (17) The commission found: On four occasions between April 1979 and August 1980, petitioner ordered the Burbank Police Department to release to the purchaser a revolver, pistol, or rifle (gun) that had been purchased from an owner after having been confiscated in connection with the owner's criminal conviction (or, in one case, conviction of the owner's son). Petitioner did not know the details of the negotiations for the sales and participated in the transactions only by signing the orders releasing the guns to the purchaser. Two of the guns were purchased by Gordon Mangel, petitioner's courtroom bailiff and close personal friend. The other two sales were negotiated by Mangel, one to a deputy sheriff and the other to a Burbank police officer, both of whose duties brought them to petitioner's courtroom from time to time. None of the purchasers was a licensed firearms dealer. The court file in each case contains not only the order of release but also the bill of sale. Section 12028 provides that a firearm used in a crime is, upon conviction, a nuisance and shall be surrendered to the sheriff or chief of police. Subdivision (c) of that section provides that [t]he officers to whom the weapons are surrendered, except upon the certificate of a judge ..., or of the district attorney ..., that the retention thereof is necessary or proper to the ends of justice, may annually, between the 1st and 10th days of July,... offer the weapons ... [considered] to have value with respect to sporting, recreational, or collection purposes, for sale at public auction to [federally licensed gun dealers]. Subdivision (d) provides that if the weapon is not of the type that can be sold to the public, generally, or is not sold pursuant to subdivision (c), it shall be destroyed. Subdivisions (c) and (f) contain provisions for the return of stolen weapons to innocent owners. Section 12030 provides that a law enforcement agency having custody of a firearm subject to destruction may retain it for official use, but the weapon must be destroyed when no longer needed. [10] Section 1417 provides: All exhibits which have been introduced or filed in any criminal action or proceeding may be disposed of as provided in this chapter [§§ 1417-1419]. Section 1419 provides that certain kinds of property, including weapons used in the crime, filed as an exhibit shall be, by order of the trial court, destroyed or sold or otherwise disposed of under the conditions provided in such order. [11] Apparently in response to petitioner's claim that sections 1417 and 1419 authorized the orders in question, the commission found that [e]ach firearm sold was then in the custody of the Burbank Police Department and none were exhibits filed with the court. In each case exhibits were not necessary since the defendant pleaded guilty. There is no merit to petitioner's argument that the guns plausibly could be regarded as exhibits which have been introduced or filed in any criminal action or proceeding (§ 1417) simply because the court record included the police report, in which the gun was described, and, in some cases, an order that the gun be confiscated. ( Harty v. Superior Court (1981) 124 Cal. App.3d 745, 748 [177 Cal. Rptr. 477] [decided after the orders here in question; see fn. 13, post ].) There is no indication that any of the guns left the possession of the police department during the criminal proceeding. Petitioner testified that he signed firearm release orders of the sort in question six to eight times. The first time he was approached by private counsel who wanted a gun released so that the defendant could pay his fee. [12] Petitioner consulted a deputy city attorney (also a witness before the masters), who advised petitioner that it was proper to authorize the release. He told petitioner he based his advice on (1) having seen private attorneys obtain the release of guns from police departments to satisfy their fees, (2) the inherent power of the court, and (3) the provision in section 12028 for a certificate of a judge that retention of the gun is necessary or proper to the ends of justice, from which he inferred that the power to authorize retention included power to authorize transfer to a private party. Commissioner Murphy, who had served for a year and a half in petitioner's court, testified that although he had never ordered guns released, he believed that release was proper under section 12028. He reasoned that at least one purpose of section 12028 is to get the weapon out of the hands of someone who may be irresponsible, and that a purchase by a peace officer would accomplish that purpose. Municipal Court Judge Plotkin, who was active with petitioner in the Presiding Judges Association, testified that in his opinion the court had discretion to release a gun to the assignee of a defendant, or to return it to the defendant, or to order it destroyed, but he did not recall, during his testimony, the sections providing such discretion. We perceive no arguable basis for thinking the petitioner's gun sale orders were authorized by section 12028. It declares the gun a nuisance and requires that the sheriff or police chief holding it either (1) sell it at public auction to a federally licensed gun dealer, unless a judge or the district attorney authorizes its retention or (2) destroy it. Section 12030 authorizes the law enforcement agency having custody of the gun to use it for official duties and requires that it be destroyed when not needed for such use. Thus, the gun is confiscated, and its only permissible dispositions are auction sale to a licensed dealer, retention for official use, or destruction. Petitioner's orders flagrantly violated these provisions in two respects: First, they authorized transfer of the gun to a private party for private use. (Though the purchasers were peace officers, no strings were attached to their use or resale of the weapon.) Second, the proceeds of the sales went to the defendants even though the statutes make clear that the gun is confiscated as a nuisance, becomes public property, and is no longer the defendant's to sell. Petitioner contends that Harty v. Superior Court, supra, 124 Cal. App.3d 745, demonstrates that the validity of the gun transfer orders was debatable, and that his making them thus constituted legal error, correctable by a higher court, rather than judicial misconduct. Harty invalidated a municipal court's order for transfer of a convicted defendant's confiscated gun from the police department that had arrested him to the marshal of the court for use in his official duties; it was held that the marshal was not among the law enforcement officers entitled to possession of a confiscated weapon under sections 12028 and 12030. [13] But even a holding that the marshal's claim in Harty was valid would far from justify the present orders authorizing defendants from whom the guns had been supposedly confiscated to receive the proceeds of a private sale for unrestricted use or resale. Sections 12028 and 12030 would have made petitioner's approval of private sales of confiscated guns highly improper regardless of the identity or relationship of the parties to the transactions. The involvement of courtroom personnel, particularly petitioner's courtroom bailiff and close personal friend, Gordon Mangel, additionally violated petitioner's obligations under canon 2(B) of the California Code of Judicial Conduct, which specifies particular ways in which a judge should avoid impropriety and the appearance of impropriety in all his activities (title of canon 2). Canon 2(B) states: A judge should not allow his family, social, or other relationships to influence his judicial conduct or judgment. He should not lend the prestige of his office to advance the private interests of others; nor should he convey or permit others to convey the impression that they are in a special position to influence him.... By approving a series of confiscated-gun sales to, or negotiated by, his bailiff and friend, petitioner was bound to convey the impression that the bailiff had an inside track for obtaining the guns' release. Moreover, the bailiff's status as an arm of the court necessarily gave him an enormous bargaining advantage over the gun sellers, who were recently sentenced defendants or the father of such a defendant. (Two of those defendants had been put on probation; a third sentenced to jail; and the fourth sentenced to time already served.) The commission concluded that petitioner's approval of the gun sales was wilful misconduct. Certainly he knew or reasonably should have known that the sales themselves were illegal under sections 12028 and 12030 and that the circumstances of the sales, particularly the participation of the bailiff, created at least the appearance of impropriety under canon 2(B). As already pointed out, the touchstone of wilful misconduct is bad faith, which requires a malicious or corrupt purpose beyond mere actual or constructive knowledge of lack of power. ( Spruance v. Commission on Judicial Qualifications, supra, 13 Cal.3d 778, 795-796; Geiler v. Commission on Judicial Qualifications, supra, 10 Cal.3d 270, 283-284.) While petitioner's acts of approving the gun sales constituted a grossly negligent misuse of his judicial power, we are not persuaded by clear and convincing evidence that his motives in committing those acts were malicious or corrupt. Accordingly, we conclude that the acts amounted only to conduct prejudicial.