Opinion ID: 2604113
Heading Depth: 1
Heading Rank: 7

Heading: The Cuskaden Incidents

Text: (12) Several charges of misconduct relate to a Ms. Cuskaden, who resided on Catalina during much of the time during which petitioner occupied the bench on the island and was well known in the courtroom, both as litigant and spectator.
In mid-August 1983 petitioner became aware of a letter that Ms. Cuskaden wrote to the Commission in which she alleged that he had her evicted from the courtroom and had ordered the bailiff, in doing so, to punch her in the mouth. There is evidence in the record that she posted these charges in various public places in Avalon. Petitioner wrote to Ms. Cuskaden and directed her to appear before him on August 19. [3] On that date he inquired of her whether the letter to the Commission bore her signature. When she invoked her right to remain silent, petitioner ordered her to appear in the Long Beach Municipal Court to show cause why she should not be held in contempt for the language in her letter to the Commission. He further informed her that if she were adjudged in contempt and remanded to custody, he would recommend a mental evaluation of her pursuant to Penal Code section 4011.6. Finally, unless she came as a party or a witness, he would hold her in contempt if she again appeared in his courtroom. On the basis of the report of the masters, the Commission found two charges of wilful misconduct to be true: that petitioner had abused the contempt power and that he had failed to conduct himself in a manner promoting public confidence in the judiciary. It concluded that the acts involved malice in that he intentionally committed acts which he knew or should have known were beyond his lawful power, engaging in a pervasive course of conduct of overreaching his authority. ( Geiler, supra, 10 Cal.3d at p. 286; see also McCartney, supra, 12 Cal.3d at p. 531.) The Commission's findings are fully justified. Petitioner once again failed to follow the contempt procedures mandated in Code of Civil Procedure section 1211. Furthermore, petitioner should have known that his actions would undermine public confidence in the impartiality of the judiciary. His summoning Ms. Cuskaden into court at the very least suggests the appearance of singling her out to punish her for complaints about him to the Commission. In addition, the conduct exhibited malice. Petitioner claims that he simply intended to ask her to retract the defamatory imputations of the posted letter. [4] Even if this explanation is true, the matter should have been handled by a judge who was not personally embroiled in it. (See Wenger, supra, 29 Cal.3d at p. 629.) And the masters characterized his actions as vindictive and punitive. It stretches credulity to claim that summoning someone into court and initiating a contempt proceeding for writing a letter to the Commission could be done for a proper judicial purpose. In relation to this incident petitioner was also charged with wilful misconduct for engaging in a vengeful and punitive pattern of conduct by improperly summoning Ms. Cuskaden to appear before him and later attempting to banish her from his courtroom. The Commission adopted the finding of the masters that these charges constituted only prejudicial conduct. Because they largely duplicate the two charges of wilful misconduct that we have concluded are true, we lay aside these findings.
(13a) Petitioner again summoned Ms. Cuskaden into his courtroom by a letter dated September 15, 1983. When she appeared eight days later, she attempted to disqualify him by a motion pursuant to Code of Civil Procedure section 170.6. Petitioner denied the motion as inappropriate in a contempt hearing. A peace officer then testified that he had seen Ms. Cuskaden in line to board the ferry from the island to Long Beach at approximately 11:15 a.m. on September 12. Petitioner held Ms. Cuskaden in contempt for violating his order to appear at 9 a.m. that same day in Long Beach in connection with her letter to the Commission and the material she had posted in Avalon. He sentenced her to five days in jail and a fine of $500, which could be served at the rate of $30 a day. She was remanded forthwith. Ms. Cuskaden was brought back to petitioner's courtroom that afternoon. He had learned that her teenage son might be living alone in a motel in Avalon. A local ordinance made it an offense to allow a motel room to be occupied solely by someone under the age of 18. When he questioned her about her son's age and residence, she invoked her right to remain silent. Petitioner forthwith held her in contempt and sentenced her to an additional $500 fine and five more days in jail. On September 28 the Los Angeles Superior Court released Ms. Cuskaden on a writ of habeas corpus, and the following month it ruled the contempt orders fatally defective because the timely order required by Code of Civil Procedure section 1211 had not been filed. The Commission concluded this series of events constituted abuse of the contempt power, failure to conduct himself in court proceedings in a manner that promotes public confidence in the impartiality of the judiciary, and vindictive and punitive conduct in improperly questioning and jailing Ms. Cuskaden regarding an uncharged collateral matter over her timely invocation of the constitutional right to remain silent. The Commission further found that the vindictive and punitive conduct in improperly summoning Ms. Cuskaden was prejudicial conduct. The evidence once again supports these conclusions. Petitioner knew or should have known that his actions exceeded the bounds of his authority. The contempt orders were, as in the other instances, procedurally irregular. Furthermore, the masters found that Ms. Cuskaden had indeed appeared before Judge Simpson in the Long Beach Municipal Court on the day in question, and that the case was continued to September 26 for a hearing. Ironically, in his eagerness to ensure her presence in Long Beach, petitioner appears to have held her in contempt despite the fact that she went to the hearing on the appointed day, and by having her jailed for 10 days for the 2 alleged contempts on September 23 he prevented her from attending the continued contempt hearing in Long Beach on September 26. Equally disturbing is petitioner's ordering her into his courtroom later to question her about her son's occupancy of a motel room and the addition of another count of contempt when she refused to testify on a matter over which he palpably had no jurisdiction. Finally, the imposition of fines that were sure in her case to lead to additional jail time violates the precepts of In re Antazo, supra, 3 Cal.3d at page 115. (14) In contempt proceedings the court is often the prosecutor, judge, and jury. The contempt power is virtually unique in our system of justice because it permits a single official to deprive a citizen of his fundamental liberty interest without all of the procedural safeguards normally accompanying such a deprivation. Petitioner would have done well to recall the words of one of this court's first opinions, a case involving the future Justice Stephen J. Field: The power [of contempt] is necessarily of an arbitrary nature, and should be used with great prudence and caution. A Judge should bear in mind that he is engaged, not so much in vindicating his own character, as in promoting the respect due to the administration of the laws .... ( People v. Turner (1850) 1 Cal. 152, 153.) (13b) We must, in determining whether malice existed, also assess petitioner's purpose. He suggests that summoning Ms. Cuskaden into court was a well-meaning attempt to teach her that there was no future in disobeying lawful orders of the court. The masters, however, once again found that petitioner had engaged in vindictive and punitive conduct. His eagerness to compel that Ms. Cuskaden be made to account for her letter criticizing him to the Commission and the inquisitorial proceeding regarding her son  who would be living alone only because his mother was wrongfully held in jail  support a strong inference that his motive was to punish her and perhaps to drive her off the island. We therefore adopt the Commission's findings on this incident.
(15) On March 28, 1984, Ms. Cuskaden appeared as a defendant in the Catalina Justice Court. She filed an affidavit of prejudice against petitioner under Code of Civil Procedure section 170.6. The case was then transferred to the South Bay Judicial District. Petitioner subsequently wrote a letter to Judge Herrington of the latter court, advising her that the Cuskaden case would likely be heard in her division. The note continued that since I have been papered, it goes without saying that I must use discretion and not attempt to influence you or any other judge. Ms. Cuskaden, he nevertheless reported, had recently been convicted by an Avalon jury but it was no longer possible to impanel an impartial group of jurors on the island. Furthermore, he warned Judge Herrington that any statements made by this defendant should be viewed with skepticism. On at least two occasions, this defendant has libeled my bailiff and myself.... [H]er ability to distort and/or lie can be most persuasive. The notice of formal proceedings contained two charges of wilful misconduct arising out of this occurrence: offering unsolicited advice to another judge on a case from which he had been disqualified, and vengeful and punitive conduct. Although the two charges focus on different aspects of the writing of the letter, they overlap considerably. We therefore adopt only one of the Commission's findings: that offering unsolicited advice to another judge constituted wilful misconduct. As we observed in Gubler, supra, 37 Cal.3d at page 54, Since petitioner was disqualified under section 170.6 from hearing the ... issue, it was highly improper for him to give unsolicited advice to another judicial officer on how to decide it. The right to disqualify a judge, guaranteed by section 170.6 [citations], would be undermined and perhaps vitiated if the disqualified judge were permitted to circumvent the disqualification by initiating advice to another judicial officer on how to decide the matter. The masters observed that although in the similar Hughes incident they had found the rendering of unsolicited advice to be the lesser charge of prejudicial conduct owing to petitioner's contrition and lack of experience, in the present instance he not only should have known, but obviously was actually aware, that his action was highly improper. [5] Petitioner does not dispute this finding. But he contends that his motivation was merely to warn Judge Herrington and protect the court from possible misrepresentation. The masters, to whom we customarily defer in questions of the credibility of witnesses, characterized his explanation as disingenuous and stated that the gratuitous transmission of his views to Judge Herrington following his disqualification was done for vindictive and punitive motives. (Cf. Gubler, supra, 37 Cal.3d at pp. 52-54.) We agree. Indeed, petitioner virtually condemned himself by acknowledging in his letter the need to avoid influencing another judge and then proceeding to do exactly that.
(16) Posted in the Catalina courtroom was a sign with the following text: Notice!! All parties and witnesses appearing before the court will be properly attired. Long pants and shirt. No shorts, swim suits or bare feet allowed in court room at any time. This is understandable in a resort community. On June 15, 1984, Ms. Cuskaden entered the court as a spectator, wearing shoes, jeans, and a sweatshirt that left a shoulder bare, revealing the strap of a piece of underclothing or a bathing suit. Before court was in session, petitioner asked his bailiff to inform her that she was improperly attired and would have to leave. She declined to do so. Petitioner then took the bench and told her that she was in violation of the dress code. When she refused to leave, he held her in contempt of court and sentenced her to five days in jail and a $500 fine. She was transported to a division of the Los Angeles County Jail on the mainland, only to be released on her own recognizance later that day after she petitioned the superior court for a writ of habeas corpus. A month later the superior court granted the petition and vacated the contempt order. Following his adjudication that Ms. Cuskaden was in contempt, petitioner ordered that she not be allowed to make a telephone call. He contends that as she was being led out of the courtroom she shouted that she wished to make a call, and that he issued the prohibition because he interpreted her utterance as a request to use the telephone on the court clerk's desk. However, we are inclined to agree with the masters who found that petitioner meant to preclude her from making any telephone calls. It is clear that this interpretation was given petitioner's utterance by his bailiff, who wrote on the booking slip that Judge orders no phone calls. Because the bailiff was at the scene and had worked with petitioner for some time, his contemporaneous understanding of the meaning of the statement should be given substantial weight. The Commission based two charges of wilful misconduct on this incident: abuse of the contempt power and failure to conduct himself in a manner that promotes public confidence in the impartiality of the judiciary. We concur in its conclusion that the evidence substantiates the charges. As to the contempt power, petitioner again failed to make the required written findings and an order. He seems to have learned nothing from the fact that several of his contempt orders had been set aside by higher courts for these procedural defects. [6] And once more he imposed a monetary fine on an indigent, ordering confinement if it was not paid and thus effectively quadrupling the permissible period of confinement. Furthermore, petitioner violated Ms. Cuskaden's statutory right to use the telephone (Pen. Code, § 851.5, subd. (a)), thereby jeopardizing her ability to obtain relief by a petition for habeas corpus. Singling her out for such treatment clearly does not serve to promote public confidence in the impartiality of the judiciary. Moreover, we have seen ample confirmation of petitioner's growing animosity toward Ms. Cuskaden. These incidents do not merely reflect procedural shortcomings, as he would have it, but are part of a disturbing pattern of wilful misconduct toward a litigant and courtroom spectator. As the masters noted, he was probably dealing with Ms. Cuskaden in a manner applauded by those who believe her to be a controversial and difficult individual. But a judge's prime responsibility is the evenhanded dispensation of justice, even for the controversial and difficult persons in society. We thus conclude that in indulging his animosity toward Ms. Cuskaden petitioner was guilty of wilful misconduct in office.
(1b) We have seen that the Commission, by a vote of seven to one, recommended that petitioner be removed from office. While we give serious consideration to the recommendation and its near-unanimity, the ultimate disposition rests with this court. ( Spruance v. Commission on Judicial Qualifications (1975) 13 Cal.3d 778, 799-800 & fn. 18 [119 Cal. Rptr. 841, 532 P.2d 1209].) (17a) We have sustained eight charges of wilful misconduct against petitioner, arising out of four separate incidents. In addition, we have sustained 10 charges of prejudicial conduct. (18) Choosing the proper sanction is an art, not a science, and turns on the facts of the case at bar. (17b) Nevertheless, it is worth comparing the charges sustained here with those in other judicial discipline cases. Since 1964 this court has ordered the removal of five judges. The first such case was Geiler, supra, 10 Cal.3d 270, in which a judge was removed for several instances of wilful misconduct, including the use of vulgar language and sexual innuendo, prodding a deputy public defender with a dildo, curtailing cross-examination, and interfering with the attorney-client relationship. In Spruance, supra, 13 Cal.3d 778, a judge was removed from office for acting with hostility toward an attorney by failing to properly disqualify himself, maliciously attempting to prejudice a criminal defendant's case, trying to influence the disposition of criminal cases as a favor to friends and political supporters, and appointing friends and supporters as attorneys in cases in which the defendant was not entitled to counsel at public expense. We concluded in Cannon v. Commission on Judicial Qualifications (1975) 14 Cal.3d 678, 681 [122 Cal. Rptr. 778, 537 P.2d 898], that the petitioner had engaged in 21 acts constituting wilful misconduct and 8 instances of prejudicial conduct. Among the former were cases of abuse of the contempt power, unlawful interference with the attorney-client relationship, arbitrary setting of bail, instilling submissiveness in attorneys and ridiculing members of the bar, abusing the prerogatives of office, and several instances of bizarre behavior. The next case in which a judge was removed was Wenger, supra, 29 Cal.3d 615. There we sustained 10 charges of wilful misconduct in 9 separate incidents. The wilful misconduct included failure of the judge to disqualify himself, abuse of the contempt power, and banishing a prosecutor from the courtroom because he suspected she had communicated with the Commission regarding his judicial performance. Finally, our sustaining of 18 charges of wilful misconduct and 2 charges of prejudicial conduct led to removal in Gonzalez, supra, 33 Cal.3d 359, 377. Among the incidents of wilful misconduct were interceding in criminal matters for the benefit of friends and benefactors, arbitrary bail-setting, impugning the character of his colleagues, abuse of judicial authority, making personal verbal attacks, and uttering ethnic and sexual slurs. Petitioner's transgressions are not as numerous or as colorful as those in Cannon, for example, which is admittedly a rather egregious illustration of judicial malfeasance. His case exhibits many similarities with Wenger, however, both as to the number of sustained charges of wilful misconduct and the types of incidents. In both this case and Wenger the primary instances of misconduct consisted of abuses of the contempt power, failure of the judges to disqualify themselves, and by various means improperly injecting themselves into the adversarial process. And in each case the judge took reprisals against someone he knew or suspected had complained of his conduct to the Commission. Petitioner concedes that some discipline is appropriate. But he maintains that the confluence of his inexperience on the bench and unusually trying circumstances mitigates his conduct. Several witnesses praised his energy and devotion. He further alleges that before the recommendation of sanctions by the Commission he became aware of his shortcomings and began attending judicial education meetings. We have no doubt that petitioner was industrious, but hard work does not mitigate wilful misconduct. ( Wenger, supra, 29 Cal.3d at p. 653.) As we stated in Cannon, supra, 14 Cal.3d at page 706, It is manifest ... that a lack in the quality of justice cannot be balanced by the fact that justice, such as it is, is administered in large quantities. Nor are petitioner's expressions of remorse especially persuasive. As in Wenger, The difficulty with his professed enlightenment is its delayed arrival. ( Wenger, supra, 29 Cal.3d at p. 654.) All the sustained charges of wilful misconduct occurred after he became aware that Ms. Cuskaden had been in contact with the Commission, and hence after he should have been on notice that an investigation of his conduct was possible. And he seems to have learned little from his mistakes: he improperly held Ms. Cuskaden in contempt after similar orders had twice been overturned by a higher court for procedural irregularities, and he sent an unsolicited letter to Judge Herrington even after he had been warned of its impropriety in the Hughes incident. Petitioner urges leniency because of his inexperience. Here again an analogy with Wenger is apposite. Judge Wenger had been a deputy district attorney for five years and had been in office a mere three years before the Commission notified him that it was investigating his conduct; the Commission filed its recommendation for removal only five years after he took office. We rejected Judge Wenger's appeals to inexperience, noting that he should have known criminal procedure and that his abuses in civil matters were too serious to be explainable by lack of training. ( Wenger, supra, 29 Cal.3d at pp. 653-654.) Like Judge Wenger, petitioner had been an attorney for five years, largely as a deputy district attorney and deputy public defender, before assuming the bench. And in both cases the misconduct occurred during the first few years that the judges were in office. In any event, lack of prior experience simply cannot mitigate wilful misconduct: if petitioner did not have the legal background and temperament to avoid committing malfeasance in office, he should not have sought election to the court. We recognize that all the sustained charges of wilful misconduct involved Ms. Cuskaden, a person described in the record as a foulmouthed and intentionally disruptive spectator and litigant. But the mitigating weight of Ms. Cuskaden's courtroom demeanor is slight. (Cf. Wenger, supra, 29 Cal.3d at p. 637.) It was petitioner's duty to deal with such difficulties by lawful and proper means. As Justice Douglas of the United States Supreme Court has written, Judges are supposed to be men of fortitude, able to thrive in a hardy climate. ( Craig v. Harney (1947) 331 U.S. 367, 376 [91 L.Ed. 1546, 1552, 67 S.Ct. 1249].) (19) Finally, petitioner suggests that instead of removal we order a temporary suspension from office, a sanction that has been applied in some of our sister states. (Cf. Matter of Inquiry Concerning a Judge No. 693 (1984) 253 Ga. 485 [321 S.E.2d 743]; Matter of Martinez (1982) 99 N.M. 198 [656 P.2d 861]; Matter of Hague (1982) 412 Mich. 532 [315 N.W.2d 524]; Matter of Ross (Me. 1981) 428 A.2d 858.) We possess no such authority: the Constitution specifically empowers us only to censure or remove a judge. (Cal. Const., art. VI, § 18, subd. (c).) (20) The purpose of these proceedings is not to punish errant judges but to protect the judicial system and those subject to the awesome power that judges wield. ( Wenger, supra, 29 Cal.3d at p. 654.) For all the reasons stated herein, that purpose will best be served in this case by adopting the recommendation of the masters and of the Commission. We order that Judge Robert H. Furey, Jr., of the Catalina Justice Court District, Los Angeles County, be removed from office. Because the misconduct for which he is removed does not amount to grounds for disbarment or suspension from the practice of law, he shall, if otherwise qualified, be permitted to continue to practice law (Cal.Const, art. VI, § 18, subd. (d); see Wenger v. Commission on Judicial Performance, supra, 29 Cal.3d at p. 654), but he shall be required to pass the Professional Responsibility Examination within one year (see Gonzalez v. Commission on Judicial Performance, supra, 33 Cal.3d at p. 378); Segretti v. State Bar (1976) 15 Cal.3d 878, 891, fn. 8 [126 Cal. Rptr. 793, 544 P.2d 929]). This order is final forthwith. Petitioner's application for a rehearing was denied December 17, 1987, and the opinion and judgment were modified to read as printed above.