Litigation
Jun. 21, 2002
Lawyers Argue Judge's Motives for Liaison
SANTA ANA - Both plaintiffs' and defense attorneys agreed that former Los Angeles Superior Court Judge George W. Trammell III overstepped the bounds of judicial conduct in having sex with a vulnerable female defendant on probation before him.
The question the attorneys posed to jurors Wednesday, however, was this: Did the woman, Pifen Lo, consent to the liaison, or did Trammell force her into complying on threat of sentencing her husband to life in prison?
"There is no gray area," Lo's lawyer, Lawrence Guzin of Guzin & Steier in Los Angeles, told a six-man, six-woman jury in closing arguments in Orange County Superior Court. "It's a straight black-and-white case."
Lo, in a navy blazer and skirt, sat behind Guzin, facing the jury, her hands folded in her lap. The 43-year-old plaintiff is seeking compensatory damages from the state in connection with Trammell's four-month sexual relationship with her following the conviction of her husband, Ming Jin, and their live-in baby sitter in a 1996 kidnap-extortion trial.
Lo pleaded guilty to lesser charges, and Trammell sentenced her to five years' probation.
Several months later, Trammell called Lo into his chambers and allegedly told her that, if she wanted to help her husband, she would have to "pay the price" by having sex with him. That was the beginning of their four-month sexual relationship.
If Lo willingly consented to the affair, Guzin explained to the jury, then she suffered no harm.
But if, as Guzin maintained, Trammell forced her to have sex and intentionally inflicted physical and emotional distress on his client, then he is guilty of sexual battery, and Lo is entitled to compensation from the state, as Trammell's employer at the time.
"How can you have a reasonable belief of consent when you have a person dangling by a threat of probation [revocation] and her husband facing a life sentence?" Guzin asked the jury
"She did whatever it took to save her life," he said.
Facing a poster-size, color blowup of Trammell, tacked on a bulletin board beside the jury, Guzin told the panel that the former judge would not appear in person to testify.
Trammell, 66, is serving a 27-month sentence in federal prison for a mail-fraud conviction in connection with his judicial misconduct.
In his place, Guzin admitted into evidence a brief that Trammell wrote to the state Commission on Judicial Performance and his 2001 federal plea agreement, in which he admitted to having a relationship with Lo.
Arguing for the state, Michael Hood of Paul Hastings Janofsky & Walter, contended that Lo willingly entered into the affair.
Not only that, Hood told the jury, Lo and Jin conspired to extort Trammell by going public unless he granted Jin a new trial and helped Lo retrieve her Rolex watches and 8-year-old Mercedes-Benz that authorities had confiscated after her arrest.
"Pifen and the shadowy figure of Jin in the background played Judge Trammell for a sucker," Hood told jurors. "But there is no evidence to show that he forced her to have sex."
Backing his contention, Hood played for the jury excerpts from audiotapes that Lo made of her phone conversations with Trammell. He also played passages from secret tapes that Trammell made of the couple in the judge's bedroom, which new owners of Trammell's house discovered hidden behind a light fixture several years after the affair.
On the tapes, Lo is heard giggling and kidding Trammell and trying to teach him to say, "I love you," in Chinese.
"This is not the conversation of a man forcing her against her will," Hood told the jury. "She is in control. She could have got him to say anything. There's not one word of anger. He's very kind, solicitous.
"This is not someone feigning happiness," Hood said of Lo. "It's a friendly, jovial kind of relationship, in which she kids him and invites herself over to his house."
But Guzin countered that Lo only had pretended to be happy because of what Trammell in his position of authority could do. He called the judge a "crazy, crazy man," who had a "Chinese geisha kind of weird fantasy" about women.
Guzin told jurors that Trammell had told Lo on one occasion that he didn't want to see her if she had a sad face, reinforcing her resolve to pretend happiness around him.
During the two-week trial before Orange County Superior Court Judge David Brickner, Lo testified that Trammell forced her into a four-month sexual relationship, ordering her to his home too many times to count.
Largely repeating previous accounts that she offered in a series of hearings in state and federal court, as well as during a previous judicial misconduct hearing, Lo said that she began keeping a diary and taping phone calls so she would have a record to take to authorities.
Guzin told jurors that Lo didn't come forward earlier because she distrusted the police and didn't believe anyone would take her word over that of a state court judge.
She did, however, tell her husband, Jin, who was in the county jail awaiting sentencing. Jin, in turn, told a private investigator.
Jin also drafted a 2nd District Court of Appeal petition that a jailer intercepted, leading to the story becoming public.
In January 1997, the Los Angeles County Sheriff's Department interviewed Trammell. The next day, the judge abruptly resigned from the bench.
Along with the federal conviction, the state Commission on Judicial Performance and the State Bar Court have suspended Trammell's ability to serve as a judge or practice law in the state.
Brickner initially had ruled that the state could not be sued for Trammell's actions, but the 2nd District Court of Appeal overturned his decision, a finding upheld by the state Supreme Court.
Susan Mc Rae
For reprint rights or to order a copy of your photo:
Email
Jeremy_Ellis@dailyjournal.com
for prices.
Direct dial: 213-229-5424
Send a letter to the editor:
Email: letters@dailyjournal.com