The commission found<\/a> that while presiding over criminal matters at the Clara Shortridge Foltz Criminal Justice Center in downtown Los Angeles, Superior Court Judge Enrique Monguia made public remarks threatening to \u201cshoot\u201d people or have people \u201cshot\u201d by his bailiff, including attorneys and a retired judge.<\/p>\nThe panel said he also engaged in a pattern of improper remarks that \u201cwere discourteous and gave the appearance of bias to a crime victim, prospective jurors, defendants, attorneys and others.\u201d<\/p>\n
Each of Monguia\u2019s remarks \u201cconstituted an abuse of authority\u201d and violated the judicial rules of conduct, according to the commission\u2019s statement on the findings.<\/p>\n
Monguia could not immediately be reached for comment. However, the panel said he did not contest the issuance of the public admonishment. <\/p>\n
In a written statement, a Los Angeles County Superior Court spokesperson said that although disciplinary matters are confidential, \u201cCourt leadership reaffirms its conviction that judicial officers must uphold the integrity and impartiality of the judiciary by administering justice fairly and exemplifying the highest standards of conduct \u2014 both on and off the bench.\u201d<\/p>\n
Monguia served as a public defender from 1986 to 2014, when then-Gov. Jerry Brown appointed him to the Superior Court. His current term began in January 2023.<\/p>\n
Among the examples of Monguia\u2019s misconduct reviewed by the panel included a November 2022 preliminary hearing of a man accused of assaulting a security guard. The man\u2019s attorney presented surveillance footage of the attack to show his client was in fact defending himself, and later requested that the charges be reduced to a misdemeanor.<\/p>\n
\u201cWhile announcing his ruling holding the defendant to answer, Judge Monguia expressed his opinion that the video did not show self-defense,\u201d the panel wrote. \u201cHe stated, \u2018If it were me, I would have shot him [the defendant], but that\u2019s me.\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n
In September 2023, Monguia threatened two attorneys who were discussing a case too loudly in his court that if they didn\u2019t lower their voices, \u201che would authorize his bailiff to use physical force, not for the bailiff to shoot counsel, but so Judge Monguia could shoot counsel himself.\u201d<\/p>\n
The following month, retired Los Angeles County Superior Court Judge Stephen Marcus, who was presiding in another courtroom but not wearing a judicial robe, entered Monguia\u2019s courtroom and requested to use the private entrance reserved for court staff but was denied.<\/p>\n
\u201cFrom the bench, Judge Monguia stated that Judge Marcus was lucky the bailiff was not there, otherwise he would have ordered her to \u2018shoot\u2019 Judge Marcus or words to that effect.\u201d<\/p>\n
The commission said Monguia\u2019s shooting remarks \u201cfostered an atmosphere of intimidation in the courtroom and, even if made in jest, were undignified and discourteous.\u201d<\/p>\n
The panel said Monguia also engaged in a pattern of making improper remarks to attorneys, defendants, prospective jurors and crime victims.<\/p>\n
In one case, he told a defendant who was overweight and having trouble paying fines that he did not appear to be starving. Monguia did acknowledge his comment was \u201cdemeaning and wrong.\u201d<\/p>\n
In another case, he told a prosecutor that a pregnant woman with past criminal drug charges in his courtroom was going to have a \u201cmeth baby\u201d who would be \u201csupported by [his] taxes.\u201d<\/p>\n
The panel said Monguia also made improper remarks to prospective jurors including one woman whom he referred to as a \u201chot mess\u201d after she disclosed her son\u2019s criminal history during jury selection in September 2022.<\/p>\n
The remarks also extended to victims of crime, the panel found, including a woman who in March 2023 sought to modify a no-contact restraining order to allow peaceful contact so that she could be present for visits between her son and his father.<\/p>\n
Monguia\u2019s remarks that day implied that the woman was putting herself in a dangerous situation and creating a burden for her community \u2014 including police officers who may have to respond to help her, according to the statement.<\/p>\n
The panel said Monguia abused his authority in some cases \u2014 including in September 2023, when a woman voluntarily showed up for a bench warrant with her child. The woman\u2019s attorney was not present in court, prompting Meredith Gallen, a deputy public defender, to request that she step in and represent the woman.<\/p>\n
But Monguia instead ordered that the woman be taken into custody, prompting Gallen to object as there was no one to take the woman\u2019s child. The panel provided portions of the conversation between Monguia and Gallen, who objected to the court\u2019s position on the matter.<\/p>\n
\u201c…I need a second call to speak to my administration because never once in my career have I had a child ripped away from his mother\u2019s arm in court,\u201d Gallen said, according to the transcript.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe Court: Well, you haven\u2019t been in the office very long then, counsel. I\u2019ve been here for 30 years.\u201d<\/p>\n
The woman was taken into custody but later released and reunited with her child, but not without intervention from the public defender\u2019s office.<\/p>\n
The commission found that Monguia \u201cfailed in a number of ways, to treat the defendant and attorneys with courtesy and respect during this hearing.\u201d<\/p>\n
Monguia, according to the panel\u2019s statement, acknowledged wrongdoing in that case and that his conduct in other cases was improper.<\/p>\n
\u201cJudge Monguia expressed regret and remorse for his actions, and said that he had taken steps to address unconscious bias and other matters that contributed to his misconduct.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"A Los Angeles County Superior Court judge known to make inappropriate remarks, including threatening to shoot people in…\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":204273,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5123],"tags":[12854,1582,276,6517,4471,27167,281,18740,18741,112676,6616,112678,2961,224,5337,112677,112675,58156,3546,11459],"class_list":{"0":"post-204272","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-los-angeles","8":"tag-attorney","9":"tag-ca","10":"tag-california","11":"tag-case","12":"tag-child","13":"tag-commission","14":"tag-court","15":"tag-courtroom","16":"tag-defendant","17":"tag-improper-remark","18":"tag-judge","19":"tag-judicial-misconduct","20":"tag-la","21":"tag-los-angeles","22":"tag-losangeles","23":"tag-meredith-gallen","24":"tag-monguia","25":"tag-panel","26":"tag-people","27":"tag-woman"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@us\/115155881548218659","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/204272","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=204272"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/204272\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/204273"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=204272"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=204272"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=204272"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}