Spotlight Is on Judge in Santa Ana Homeless-Arrests Case

SANTA ANA —  For almost three weeks, a myriad of homeless people, police officers, litter citations and huge maps of the Civic Center have occupied the mind of Municipal Judge B. Tam Nomoto.

Nomoto has been listening to testimony from the homeless and the police to decide if charges should be dropped against 22 defendants arrested in last summer’s sweeps at the Civic Center. Her ruling is expected this week.

It’s Nomoto’s job to shuffle through the citations and testimony to determine whether the police targeted the homeless when the department cracked down on crime at the Civic Center. Police maintain that their actions were strictly to reduce crime.

Police, politicians and advocates for the homeless are watching the case to determine how far officers and cities can go in dealing with complaints about the homeless.

“Not many criminal cases have such broad-based political and social implications,” said Justin Clouser of the Poverty Law Center.

But Nomoto says the attention the case is getting won’t affect her decision.

“As a judge, I know I have tremendous impact on whoever stands in front of me,” said Nomoto, a 12-year veteran on the bench. “But I’m not going to be paralyzed when I have to make the decision.”

However Nomoto rules, the decision will be made fairly, her colleagues say.

“She’s tough,” said Superior Court Judge Richard N. Parslow Jr., who was once her supervising judge on the municipal bench. “She’s probably heard it all. I don’t think any pressure is going to bother her.”

The case itself is unusual. The defense is composed of more than a dozen corporate and public litigation attorneys representing the homeless for free. The district attorney’s office has the Santa Ana police and the city attorney’s office, which originally filed the charges, on its side. During the August, 1990, sweeps, more than 90 homeless people were arrested for Municipal Code violations ranging from jaywalking to littering.

In the middle is Nomoto, the referee.

When Gov. Edmund G. Brown Jr. appointed her in 1979, Nomoto was 28, one of the youngest jurists ever in Orange County. Although she was the supervising attorney for the probate department, she still looked more like a law student than a judge, her colleagues say. On her first day, a U.S. marshal refused to allow her into the courthouse.

“I told the marshal, ‘I’m a judge,’ and he told me, ‘Sure you are,’ ” said Nomoto, leaning back on her chair. “I pulled out my card and proved him wrong.”

In the courtroom, spectators whispered about her youthfulness. At the time, all the judges treated her like the little sister of the bench, Parslow said.

Thousands of cases later, Nomoto has a reputation as a fair judge who runs her courtroom with a firm hand, attorneys who have worked with her say. Nomoto is now one of the senior jurists in the Municipal Court in Santa Ana. She has handled several major criminal cases, including preliminary proceedings for Richard Ramirez in the Orange County “night stalker” cases.

“I’ve watched her over the years and she is an outstanding judge,” said Superior Court Executive Officer Alan Slater, a friend.

Ron Talmo, associate dean of Western State University College of Law, said, “Nomoto has the reputation of being a very fair judge.”

Nomoto’s courtroom is the one most frequented by schoolchildren, who play attorneys and defendants in mock trials. She started a local program to introduce the courts to children by letting them participate in moot cases like “People vs. Goldilocks.”

Nomoto is a faculty member at the College of Judicial Education and Research, a professional learning center that schools judges in how best to perform their duties. She also is a visiting lecturer at UC Irvine. During these classes, she learns how naive her students are about crimes such as prostitution or drug dealing, which are run-of-the-mill cases in her courtroom.

“Some law students have no idea what johns are or what crank is,” Nomoto said. “It’s wonderful because they have a fresh viewpoint. They aren’t cynical.”

Nomoto keeps a neat office decorated with nature photos and memorabilia. A tiny plastic statue of the Peanuts character Lucy sits on her bookshelf, proudly proclaiming, “Girls are smarter than boys.”

One of two Asians on the Orange County bench (the other is Superior Court Judge Kazuharu Makino), Nomoto, whose father is Chinese and mother Japanese, said she has worked hard to be taken seriously.

As a student at UC Berkeley, Nomoto had planned a career as a concert pianist, though her parents wanted her to be a doctor. She later switched to law. She entered a private practice and then accepted a position at the Orange County probate division. Three years later, she was named a judge.

“I’ve had people gasp when I walk into my own courtroom and sit down as the judge,” Nomoto said. “They do that or say, ‘Isn’t she cute?’ An Asian woman just doesn’t fit the public perception of what a judge should be like. The public thinks of somebody like Chief Justice Malcolm Lucas, a white-haired male.”