Ito Won’t Be Honored For Courtroom Management
If Superior Court Judge Lance Ito were a figure skater, his peers would give his performance in the O.J. Simpson double murder case high marks for technical merit and low scores for artistic style. So far, according to some current and former judges interviewed Wednesday, his is not the sort of effort that generally wins gold medals.
Ito’s run-in with Court TV this week was the latest in a series of incidents in which he has threatened the press and litigants in the case with dire consequences for their actions, but then relented.
Tuesday, after an alternate juror’s face was inadvertantly shown for a split second by a Court TV camerman, Ito angrily recessed before defense attorney Johnnie Cochran Jr. could deliver his opening statement. “My inclination,” the visibly enraged judge said before leaving the bench, “is to terminate all television coverage at this point.” Wednesday, after a hearing at which media lawyers, as well as prosecutors and defense attorneys were heard, Ito dropped the issue, citing what he called “the benefit of a night’s sleep.”
While Ito’s colleagues on the bench are skeptical that his pattern of outburst and retreat will have a significant impact on the outcome of the case, many are critical of his judicial conduct. His rulings on evidentiary and procedural questions, they say, have been fair, but the process leading to them often has been erratic, particularly on media issues.
“I think he’s making himself look foolish,” says retired Los Angeles County Superior Court Judge Jack Tenner. “Saying, ‘I may pull the plug on all TV coverage’ and then not doing it is just plain silly. … Did anybody really believe he was going to pull the plug on the television cameras? I don’t think even he knows why he did that.
“It would be better for everybody, if he had this characteristic morning-after remorse early in the afternoon.”
But, as the record shows, Ito’s second thoughts tend to trail his expressions of pique by at least 24 hours. Among the threats from which he ultimately has retreated are:
To impose a gag order on the parties in the case.
To bar the Los Angeles Daily News from the courtroom for running a story about the jury questionnaire in advance of its public release.
To bar Los Angeles TV station KNBC from the courthouse for airing a story - denounced by the judge, prosecutors and defense lawyers as inaccurate - about alleged DNA tests of blood on socks found in Simpson’s bedroom.
To totally eliminate live television coverage of the case because of KNBC’s and CNN’s airing of the bloody socks story.
To bar the prosecution from using certain DNA evidence because of delays in scientific testing of blood samples.
In that instance, in response to a defense motion, Ito had warned lead prosecutor Marcia Clark “I don’t know if I can telegraph to one side more openly that you are about to lose.” But just a few days later, the judge said that although he found the defense arguments for suppression of the evidence “beguiling” he was going to admit it nonetheless.
Additionally, the judge tongue-lashed Los Angeles Police Department detective Philip Vannatter for offering misleading information when obtaining a search warrant to search Simpson’s house the day after the killings. In unsually sharp language, Ito said Vanatter showed a “reckless disregard for the truth.” In the end, Ito denied the defense’s motion to suppress any of the evdience recovered pursuant to that warrant.
To some of his colleagues on the criminal courts bench, the negative impression created by such vacillation has been exacerbated by what they see as Ito’s excessive preoccupation with his own image in the press.
One judge, who declined to identified, said he was “appalled” by Ito’s reaction to the Court TV mishap. “It’s as if every time people begin to remember that this trial is about the defendant and the two people he’s accused of killing, Judge Ito has to find an excuse to elbow his way to the front of the stage and remind everybody that he’s really in charge,” he says. “Between him and the lawyers in this case running around acting like two-bit film stars, the American public’s impression of the criminal justice system in Los Angeles has to be terrible. Talk about a lack of responsibility.”
But San Diego Superior Court Judge Terry O’Rourke, for one, sympathizes with the pressure he says Ito must be feeling: “These high-profile cases are destroyers of a judge’s reputation.”