What Next? Cattle Prods?

Municipal Judge Joan Comparet-Cassani’s unprecedented decision to administer a strong electrical shock to silence a defendant appears to be an abuse of authority and warrants a thorough review by court authorities.

When defendant Ronnie Hawkins refused to obey the judge’s order to keep quiet during his three-strikes sentencing hearing in Long Beach last week, Comparet-Cassani ordered the bailiff to administer an eight-second, 50,000-volt jolt through an electronic security belt that had been put around Hawkins’ waist because he had been violent in jail. But Hawkins, who was acting as his own attorney, had not posed a physical threat in court, witnesses said.

He had been removed twice from court--the usual response to obstreperous defendants--for failing to comply with the judge’s order not to appeal to the sympathy of jurors by telling them he was HIV-positive and faced 25 years to life in prison because his petty theft charge was a third strike. Another removal from court, to a lockup where he could still hear the judge, would have been the appropriate response to Hawkins’ defiance.

Perhaps Judge Comparet-Cassani, who was appointed in 1995 by Gov. Pete Wilson, was frustrated by her difficult defendant. But that is not sufficient justification for using the shock belt, meant to restrain threatening and violent behavior.

Assistant Presiding Judge James L. Wright has already begun to review Comparet-Cassani’s action. Surely the incident will also come under review by the Commission on Judicial Performance. The state agency, responsible for disciplining judges, has been criticized widely, including by The Times, for bringing puzzling charges against an appeals court judge simply for his dissent in a case involving a state Supreme Court precedent. But clearly the agency would appropriately be fulfilling its watchdog mandate if it examined the shocking case of the Long Beach judge.