Keating Case Is No Benchmark for Evenhanded Judge : Courts: Setting a $5-million bail thrust Gary Klausner into the spotlight. But colleagues say he has handled it with typically unflappable style.

By LOIS TIMNICK

Sept. 30, 1990 12 AM PT

TIMES STAFF WRITER

Until this month, the judge who presides over Department 100 of the L.A. County criminal courts building operated in relative obscurity, handling preliminary matters and routing dozens of criminal cases each day to various judges in the state’s busiest court.

With the appearance on his Sept. 18 calendar of a less-than-routine bail setting, however, Los Angeles County Superior Court Judge Gary Klausner has found himself playing a high-profile role in the nation’s savings and loan scandal.

Klausner is the judge who won’t let savings and loan executive Charles H. Keating Jr. out of jail.

He has said no--twice--to Keating’s request for a lower bail so that the former head of Lincoln Savings & Loan could leave the imposing confines of the county’s central jail. Indicted 12 days ago on 42 counts of securities fraud, Keating had expected to be released on his own recognizance. It was then that the court system steered him to Klausner.

As supervising judge of the central criminal division, Klausner operates a sort of train switching station, where cases come in and are sent out on separate rails. He does not hear trials, but rather handles bail hearings, pleadings and the like, and then dispatches cases, big and small, to other judges. About 75 cases each day pour through Klausner’s courtroom.

Klausner twice stunned the once wealthy and powerful Keating. First, he set bail at $5 million, an extraordinarily high figure, and then he refused to lower it, despite three days of impassioned arguments from defense attorneys.

An appellate court has denied an appeal of Klausner’s decision; the matter is now before the state Supreme Court. Keating is waiting it out in the Central Jail.

To those who know Klausner, his position on Keating’s bail was not surprising.

“Klausner stuck his neck out and he deserves credit for taking a courageous stance,” said one prosecutor, who frequently appears before him. “However, he is not the type of person who does things to make a point. He tries to be fair to each defendant, big name or no name.”

Defense attorneys, prosecutors and fellow judges describe the 49-year-old Klausner as a no-nonsense judge who handles cases efficiently but unhurriedly, a tough guy who is also compassionate. He appears easygoing and unperturbable, wincing only slightly at remarks that would be cause for contempt in some courtrooms.

Above all, they say, Klausner is a judge who knows the law and listens to the facts, then does what he believes is right.

“He is his own man; he makes his own decisions,” said one judge. Indeed, in the Keating case, Klausner has repeatedly reproached attorneys on both sides for assuming that he would rubber-stamp a privately reached bail agreement. Bail, he reminded them, is “a determination that has to be made by the court.”

Klausner said he arrived at the $5-million figure by considering both the severity of the charges against Keating and the incentive the suspect might have to flee.

“There has been a picture painted here,” the judge explained, “of . . . a person who has creditors knocking at the door, lawsuits being filed from every side, someone who has significant reasons to not stay around.”

Klausner wryly noted that “simple calculation will tell you that (the bail amount) is about 2% of what the alleged loss was.” Individual investors, most of them elderly Southern Californians, were left holding $250 million in worthless bonds after the collapse of Keating’s Lincoln Savings & Loan and its former parent, American Continental Corp.

The veteran judge appears surprised by the media attention the Keating bail matter has focused on his courtroom: “I’ve spent only 5% of my time on Keating,” he said through a court spokesman. “The rest of the time, things are churning as usual.”

Klausner said he avoids exposing himself to public opinion: He will not even read letters sent to him about the Keating case, instructing his assistants to screen them out and file them. He declined to answer any questions related to the case.

The son of a physician and a homemaker, Klausner grew up in Hollywood and La Canada. He graduated from University of Notre Dame in engineering and liberal arts, and Loyola Marymount University Law School. He is married and the father of five.

After an Army stint that included a year as a company commander in Vietnam, he worked as a trial deputy for the district attorney here for six years, then was named a court commissioner (acting judge) in Pasadena Municipal Court.

A conservative Republican, he was named to the Municipal Court bench 10 years ago by then-Gov. Edmund G. Brown Jr. He was elevated to Superior Court by Gov. George Deukmejian in 1985. He heard criminal cases in Norwalk and civil cases in Burbank before being transferred downtown last year.

If Keating’s appeal to the state Supreme Court is denied, his attorneys could ask that the case be transferred to a different judge. But they are likely to hold that onetime challenge in reserve for later this week, when Klausner is expected to assign the case to a permanent judge. At that point, they could renew their motion for a reduction in bail.

Keating has maintained that $5-million bail essentially means no bail for him. He personally cannot post more than $60,000, he said, and could raise only $500,000 by pledging his children’s homes and property. Typically, defendants can meet bail by posting with bondsmen 10% of the actual amount in cash, or by offering as collateral property or other valuables equal to twice the bail amount.

Meanwhile, the man who says he likes being a judge because “you get to see the real world through the courts,” appears unfazed by the case.

“They come and they go,” Klausner shrugged one day last week, adjusting his robe and calling for the next case to begin.