Chastising by Opinion

A few months ago, the court severely chastised a lower court judge for improperly urging a deadlocked jury to arrive at a verdict. This Sacramento Bee article and this article from the following day explain the chastisement and the reaction of various attorneys and legal commentators.

The stories contain a significant inaccuracy. The Attorney General did not represent the judge on appeal. The judge isn't even a party to the appeal. The Attorney General represents the People of the State of California.

Here is the text of the Bee articles, in case they are no longer available by the links:

Court gives judge stinging rebuke
The appellate panel publicly upbraids a capital jurist for putting pressure on a deadlocked jury.
By Ramon Coronado -- Bee Staff WriterPublished 2:15 am PST Friday, November 5, 2004An appeals court has issued a stinging rebuke to a Sacramento Superior Court judge for pressuring a deadlocked jury to return a verdict, an extraordinary ruling that has shocked judges, lawyers and law professors in its condemnation.
Judge Brian R. Van Camp, who is scheduled to begin retrying the case today, was castigated by the 3rd District Court of Appeal for not knowing basic rules of law for instructing a jury that have been on the books for more than 25 years.
The 12-page decision, which a law professor said was like being taken to the woodshed, describes Van Camp's handling of the case as a "miscarriage of justice."
The Sacramento-based appeals court overturned the conviction in the case in August, saying that despite a "plethora of aids" available to trial judges, Van Camp "failed even to undertake the modest endeavor of consulting the most obvious sources. The life of a judge is not meant to be one of ease."
Quoting Abraham Lincoln, the three-justice panel wrote that keeping up on the law is "simple, though laborious, and tedious. It is only to get the books, and read, and study them carefully."
The appeals court also took an extra step to "publish" the opinion, a precedent-setting act reserved for rare legal developments that include clarifying a gray area of the law. Published opinions are used to make arguments in legal briefs statewide. They are reprinted in law books and on the Internet.
Joshua Dressler, who was a criminal law expert at McGeorge School of Law for eight years, said that in his 27 years as a law professor he has rarely seen such a personal attack in a written opinion.
"This is not common to be so severe in overturning a trial court judge. This is taking him to the woodshed," said Dressler, now at Moritz College of Law at Ohio State University.
"Publicly shaming the judge is a way to not only rebuke one judge but to send a message to all other judges," Dressler said.
Many in the Sacramento legal community came forward to defend Van Camp.
Harlan Antler, a Sacramento defense lawyer who has known Van Camp for 20 years, said the 64-year-old judge has been unfairly maligned. Other judges have made similar mistakes and they haven't received such scathing criticism, Antler said.
"Van Camp made a mistake and he should have been reversed, but not with such nastiness," Antler said.
William Ross Warne, who worked in the same law firm with Van Camp before he became a judge, said he does not understand the appeals court ruling.
"Why did the opinion go beyond correcting a mistake? That's the $64,000 question," Warne said.
The justices of the appellate court, like Superior Court judges, are bound by canons of judicial ethics that prohibit them from commenting about their decisions and pending cases.
Van Camp, who has been on the bench for more than seven years, said that out of more than 500 trials and 40 appeals, he has been reversed only three times.
"Like all judges on our court, my goal is zero errors," he said.
"Naturally, I regret any error and have taken aggressive steps to assure no repetition," Van Camp said.
Santa Clara University School of Law professor Gerald Uelmen, who has been studying California appellate court decisions for 16 years, said 90 percent of trial court convictions are affirmed on appeal. Yet, of those that are reversed, disparagement is unheard of, he said.
Out of the more than 2,500 opinions issued annually by the 3rd District, no more than 5 percent are considered legally noteworthy enough to be "published," he said.
"Judges are quite reluctant to openly criticize other judges," Uelmen said. "Even when reversing a judge, an appeals court frequently withholds comment on a judge's competency."
Van Camp, appointed in 1997 by Gov. Pete Wilson, was unopposed in the March election for a six-year term. He began his career at age 29 in state and local government and was considered one of the brightest stars in the state Republican Party. He ran unsuccessfully for secretary of state and mayor of Sacramento and was chairman of the Capitol Area Development Authority.
As a judge, he has been praised for his work on several statewide judicial committees, including one that taught other judges the intricacies of corporate law.
Though he infrequently handles criminal cases, last year Van Camp was assigned the felony criminal case of Deontray Lamont Hinton. The Sacramentan, 27, was charged with unlawfully firing a gun into the air. There was conflicting testimony over who had the gun and who fired it.
On Feb. 20, 2003, the day after the jury began deliberations, jurors told the judge, "We seem unable to reach agreement," according to the opinion of the 3rd District Court of Appeal.
With the intention of breaking the deadlock, Van Camp instructed the jury on how to proceed. In a long soliloquy, he told jurors voting in the minority they should "respect the majority's opinion" and that the case would likely be retried if deadlocked.
He said a "great deal of time and preparation" went into the case and that "heat, light in the building" and other resources had been invested.
The 3rd District justices said such words commonly have been described in appellate decisions as "dynamite" instructions, which are aimed at blasting jurors out of a stalemate.
The jurors were sent home for five days and on their next day of deliberation convicted Hinton. He was later sentenced to three years and eight months in prison.
The 3rd District justices said Van Camp's choice of words violated state and federal court rules that have been "established law" for more than 25 years.
In their opinion, Justices Arthur G. Scotland, George W. Nicholson and Harry E. Hull Jr. said Van Camp's language acted to "inject extraneous and improper considerations into the jury's debates." Scotland, Nicholson and Hull were appointed to the appellate court by Republican governors.
Deputy Attorney General Virna L. Depaul, who represented Van Camp in the appeal, told the justices that Van Camp's words were taken out of context.
The judge also admonished jurors to "not surrender their own convictions of the truth" and that the "central focus" of his comments was not to "save resources or avoid a retrial," Depaul wrote.
"Taken in their totality," the judge's comments "did not coerce the jury," Depaul said.

Rebuked judge transfers case
By Ramon Coronado -- Bee Staff WriterPublished 2:15 am PST Saturday, November 6, 2004Nearly three months after Deontray Lamont Hinton had his criminal conviction overturned because of a judge's error, a new trial was delayed Friday after his attorney asked for another Sacramento Superior Court judge.
"Your honor, I just did two years on this case," a frustrated Hinton told the second judge he stood before Friday before his case was postponed to Tuesday.
Hinton, 27, was convicted last year of unlawfully firing a gun into the air to disperse a crowd in front his Sacramento home. He was sentenced to three years and eight months in prison.
But the 3rd District Court of Appeal overturned the conviction Aug. 12 and castigated Sacramento Superior Court Judge Brian R. Van Camp for pressuring Hinton's deadlocked jury into reaching a verdict. The three-justice panel criticized the judge, who has been on the bench for more than seven years, for not knowing or making an effort to learn basic rules of handling deadlocked juries.
The case was to be heard by Van Camp, but Hinton's lawyer, Kresta N. Daly, asked the court for another judge.
Outside of court, Daly said she didn't feel she could get a fair trial before Van Camp.
In less than a minute, Van Camp transferred the case to another judge. But he was not in Friday afternoon. Daly and Deputy District Attorney Richard Miller then walked the courthouse halls looking for a judge who was working.
Judge Gary E. Ransom, who agreed to hear the case, turned down Hinton's plea for release pending a retrial, saying the issue will be explored next week.
"The case will either be resolved or it will be set for trial," Miller said. The prosecutor said it was not unusual for Hinton to be sitting in prison three months after his conviction was overturned, given the administrative and legal requirements, including the right for Van Camp to appeal the reversal to the California Supreme Court.
Hallye Jordan, a spokeswoman for the state attorney general's office, which represented Van Camp, said this week her office was not seeking an appeal to the state Supreme Court.