A California judge's jocular behavior backfired as an appeals court ordered a new trial in an employment bias case, ruling that he had created a “circus atmosphere” and “a courtroom is not the Improv.”

Orange County Superior Court Judge James M. Brooks, a 20-year veteran of the bench, has a history of judicial misconduct. California's Commission on Judicial Performance publicly admonished him in November 2006 for mocking a civil defendant's claim of a heart condition.

Brooks's performance in the bias case against Ricoh Electronics suggests the CJP let him off lightly. The jury returned a defense verdict after a 31-day trial during which, the 4th District Court of Appeal said, the judge

allowed, indeed helped create, a circus atmosphere, giving defendants’ lawyer free rein to deride and make snide remarks at will and at the expense of plaintiffs and their lawyer.

Among other things, Brooks flashed a hand-lettered sign saying “Overruled” when plaintiffs' counsel Michelle A. Reinglass made objections. “It's lightening things up,” he said when she objected to the sign.

According to the 4th Circuit, the judge and defense counsel Daniel J. Callahan “took turns providing straight lines and punch lines to each other in a way that could only convey to the jury that they were a team and plaintiffs’ counsel was an outsider.” At one point, Callahan even sang the theme to “The Twilight Zone” during his cross-examination of a witness.

“For the record, he hit a few notes of 'The Twilight Zone' theme song which I don’t see as mocking,” Brooks said in overruling Reinglass's objection. “He was off color [sic].”

“I go through life tone deaf and colorblind,” Callahan quipped.

Ricoh's attorneys argued that such banter was all in fun and could not have swayed the jury's verdict. But Justice William F. Rylaarsdam wrote in the opinion granting a new trial that

a courtroom is not the Improv and the presider’s role model is not Judge Judy. We can only imagine what was in the jurors’ minds as they endured a 30-plus day trial in this atmosphere or the impression of the judicial system they took away with them posttrial.

Reinglass expects the decision to be forwarded to the CJP, which, in the public admonishment, found Brooks had failed to act “in a manner that promotes public confidence in the integrity and impartiality of the judiciary.”

The commission previously disciplined Brooks in 1996 for making comments that reflect ethnic bias and in 2003 for referring to parties in a case as “Nazis.” In Hernandez v. Paicius, 109 Cal.App.4th 452 (2003), the 4th District ordered a retrial in a medical malpractice case after finding he had committed misconduct.

Brooks, who turns 70 next month, should spare himself any further scrutiny by retiring. “He will not mend his ways,” Reinglass says. “He does not belong on the bench.”

By Matthew Heller
6/6/07