CRIMINAL DEFENSE LAWYER CHARLES MADDOX CHALLENGES INCUMBENT JUDGE IN ORANGE COUNTY
February 23, 2010
DEFENSE LAWYER CHALLENGES O.C. JUDGE
By Don J. DeBenedictis
Daily Journal Staff Writer
SANTA ANA - The lone Orange County Superior Court judge being challenged for re-election in June faces a lawyer who is best known for devising a short-lived, surreptitious route to snaring a misdemeanor dismissal, and who is miffed about the judge's reaction to his maneuver.
DUI defense lawyer Chad R. Maddox realizes he has little chance of unseating Craig E. Robison, a well-regarded judge with impeccable law-and-order credentials as a former deputy district attorney and police detective.
"I understand the reality," Maddox said.
Robison said he doesn't really know why Maddox is challenging him and wouldn't want to say anything negative in his election campaign, anyway.
The why traces to a driving-under-the-influence case Maddox handled in 2007.
Maddox realized that if he waived his client's speedy-trial right in open court, he could file a written withdrawal of the waiver a few days later without prosecutors noticing - even though he served them with a written warning and with the waiver itself. Then, 30 days later, he demanded the case either be tried immediately or dismissed because time for a speedy trial had run out.
The judge hearing the case refused to go along and set the trial for three weeks later. Maddox got that ruling reversed by the Superior Court Appellate Department, which published its opinion. Arias v. Superior Court (People), 167 Cal.App.4th Supp. 1 (2008).
Many judges reacted by telling all lawyers who made such "general time waivers" to withdraw the waivers only in open court, when prosecutors would be present. But Robison imposed that new requirement on Maddox alone, Maddox said.
That meant, Maddox said Friday, "basically, my clients were going to be handled differently because they're being represented by me."
Robison countered that he imposed the requirement on Maddox alone because Maddox alone was using the maneuver. "If he feels singled out, it's because he singled himself out," the judge said.
Many judges and lawyers saw the maneuver as underhanded because it amounted to the defense attorney waiving time knowing he didn't really mean it. It amounted to "a fraud on the court," one judge said.
Maddox maintains the maneuver only worked because misdemeanor prosecutors don't bother to look at what's in a case file until they get to court for a hearing. That style would never work in felony or civil litigation practice, he said.
"It comes down to [prosecutors'] being lazy," Maddox said. It also requires misdemeanor defendants "to make all of their motions once a month when cases are in court."
The state's prosecutors responded with legislation. AB 250, by Assembly Member Jeff Miller, R-Mission Viejo, which took effect Jan. 1, requires all time-waiver withdrawals to be made in open court.
In its support of the bill, the California District Attorneys Association blamed cutbacks and growing workloads for prosecutors' looking at misdemeanor files only on court days. The attorney general's office called Maddox's maneuver "gamesmanship." (I find it fascinating that lazy prosecutors call it gamesmanship when defense attorneys take advantage of their sloth)
Maddox himself understands how lawyers and judges could see it that way. Even Robison, he conceded, was "trying to do something proactive to make sure cases were not dismissed unjustly."
He isn't planning to spend much on his campaign. Still, "if a miracle happens and I win that seat, it would be a blessing for all," he said.
