NAACP Calls for Removal of Court Commissioner Over Epithet

The Los Angeles NAACP Wednesday called for the immediate removal from the Glendale Municipal Court of a white commissioner who used the racial epithet “nigger” in a court hearing.

But Los Angeles County Public Defender Wilbur F. Littlefield defended Daniel F. Calabro, saying he believed that the commissioner was getting “a bum rap.”

Raymond Johnson, president of the Los Angeles chapter of the National Assn. for the Advancement of Colored People, told a press conference that his organization is “appalled” at the use of the term by Calabro, 54, in a case involving a black assault victim from Burbank.

“We feel that that language is totally inappropriate for a judge to use or a commissioner to use,” Johnson said. “The judicial process should be free of any hint of prejudice or bias. The actions of Commissioner Calabro tend to show that there may be bias on the bench.”

He called for an investigation of Calabro by the Glendale court “to see if there is some sort of a pattern that has developed to indicate that the judge may be biased.”

The NAACP official praised Dist. Atty. Ira Reiner for effectively barring Calabro from hearing further criminal cases by ordering prosecutors Tuesday not to agree that the commissioner can hear matters filed by the district attorney’s office.

Since Calabro is a court commissioner sitting as a judge, both the prosecution and defense must agree to his hearing a case.

Johnson said the NAACP had also called on Littlefield not to agree to Calabro hearing a criminal matter involving minorities.

But Littlefield joined some of Calabro’s colleagues in expressing confidence in the commissioner.

“I think Commissioner Calabro is really getting a bum rap here,” Littlefield said. “He has never shown any prejudice at all against black people or other minorities. If he had, we’d have certainly said something about it.”

Glendale Court Administrator Karla Olson described the commissioner as “a kind and honorable man.”

“I’ve been in social settings with him where somebody had made a racist joke, and I have heard him say, ‘Please don’t say those things in front of me, it offends me,’ ” she said. “And because of that, I’ve learned how to say that myself.”

Calabro’s controversial comment came during a June hearing involving an 18-year-old white Glendale resident in an attack on a black man at a Glendale bus stop.

The defendant, Martin Jan Ivan Dorin, was quoted by authorities as saying, “Your kind is not welcome here, nigger,” before he and three other unidentified white youths punched and kicked Reggie Wainwright, 32.

The hearing followed by a matter of days a similar case in which the epithet was used.

According to a court transcript, Calabro commented: “Another nigger case? Another one where this nigger business came up? We’re not past that yet? I thought we were all past that.”

Jail Sentence

Calabro sentenced Dorin to 20 days in County Jail, placed him on two years’ probation and ordered him to make $288 restitution.

Speaking to reporters after Reiner announced his action, Calabro repeatedly denied that he had used the epithet “nigger” in a derogatory sense. He maintained that he had used the term to describe the case before him, the second in a matter of days involving a white defendant who had used the pejorative word.

Calabro said that in making the comment, he was voicing dismay that another case involving use of the epithet had come to his court.

Calabro, who worked on a civil case Wednesday, told a reporter that he had been unable to sleep and felt “in real bad physical shape.”

Several of Calabro’s colleagues suggested that the commissioner’s comments had been taken out of context.

‘Turned Around’

“He’s a good man, a compassionate man. I don’t know how this got turned around,” said Deputy Public Defender Carole Telfer, who defended Dorin in the case before Calabro. “I’m outraged at Reiner.”

Telfer said that Calabro, when making the comment at the June hearing, “. . . was shaking his head as if in disgust that here we have another racially motivated incident.”

Jessica Lee, assistant Municipal Court administrator in Pasadena, who is black, credits Calabro with helping her advance her career.

“He encouraged me; he helped me obtain a lot of my goals. He was just really supportive,” she said. “His statement was taken completely out of context.”

Josie Miranda, deputy court clerk, recounted an incident earlier this year when an indigent black defendant walked into Calabro’s courtroom barefoot.

Gave Man Shoes

“The judge asked for the defendant’s shoe size and said, ‘That’s my size.’ Then, when they took a recess, he went home and brought back shoes for him--and they were new too,” she said.

The initial complaint about Calabro came from Deputy Dist. Atty. Rhonda Saunders, the prosecutor in the Dorin case.

Saunders, who is on maternity leave, said Wednesday that she was “totally shocked” when she heard Calabro use the racial epithet.

“I honestly didn’t believe what I heard,” she recalled. “Then he went on and repeated the word again. At recess, I verified it with the court reporter. I was totally outraged and reported it to my supervisor . . . and he immediately called the district attorney’s office downtown.”

Supervisor Kenneth Hahn joined the NAACP Wednesday in expressing outrage at what he called Calabro’s “ugly and offensive racial slur.” He maintained that Calabro either should be dismissed or reprimanded by the presiding judge of the Glendale Judicial District.

Times staff writer Terry Pristin contributed to this article.