His Honor Is Honored

VAN NUYS — It’s no easy job presiding over hotly contested, and often emotional, criminal trials.

To win praise from both defense attorneys and prosecutors is twice as tough.

But Van Nuys Superior Court Judge Sandy R. Kriegler manages to do both. This week, he became the first judge from the San Fernando Valley to be honored as Superior Court Judge of the Year by the prestigious 1,000-member Century City Bar Assn.

Colleagues say he is a private, unassuming man who would rather let his legal decisions do the talking for him. He declined to be interviewed for this story.

Those who know him, however, have plenty to say: He is fair, firm and witty. He is married and the father of two children. And he loves baseball.

“He’s both a gentleman and a scholar,” said Robert Cohen, a veteran prosecutor who has worked for the Los Angeles County district attorney’s office for 25 years. “There is no waste of time. He gets to the bottom of the issues quickly.”

Longtime prosecutor Lea Purwin D’Agostino said: “He demands and commands respect. He’s firm, knowledgeable in the law and has a good sense of humor.”

In his acceptance speech Thursday, that humor was clearly in evidence. He joked that the best way to keep a courtroom running smoothly was to keep plenty of food on hand for lawyers.

Born May 29, 1950 in Van Nuys, Kriegler attended Van Nuys High School and Cal State Northridge, where he majored in political science. Kriegler graduated from Loyola Law School in 1975, and he went to work for the Los Angeles district attorney’s office.

He eventually specialized in organized crime cases.

Kriegler was appointed to the Municipal Court bench in 1985, and elevated to the Superior Court by Gov. George Deukmejian in 1989. He soon earned a reputation for handling tough trials.

“He handles the majority of the serious cases because he has a reputation for fairness and quickness,” said Peter S. Berman, head deputy district attorney for the Van Nuys courts.

Berman was lead prosecutor in the case against Hooman Ashkan Panah, a Woodland Hills store clerk sentenced to die for the murder of 8-year-old Nicole Parker. Kriegler was the judge.

“That case was a living nightmare,” Berman said. But he said Kriegler took decisive action to keep the trial moving by assigning a second lawyer when Panah’s main defense attorney fell ill.

“Other judges might have taken a more cautious approach,” Berman said. “The trial finished in a month but it very well could have been longer.”

In other notable cases, Kriegler sentenced two gang members to multiple life terms in prison late last year in the slaying of a Taft High School sophomore, Ramtin Shaolin. The 16-year-old boy was fatally shot at the Fallbrook Mall while walking with friends from a movie theater.

Kriegler also handed down four-year sentences to three teenagers who shot paint pellets at a dozen people, including several who were homeless, in attacks the judge likened to scenes from the film, “A Clockwork Orange.”

It was Kriegler’s conduct at those trials and others that persuaded the Century City Bar Assn. to choose Kriegler as its judge of the year, said association officer Myles Berman.

“The award is given each year to a judge who exhibits the same kind of qualities that Judge Kriegler has exhibited since he has been on the bench,” he said. “Like fairness.”

Deputy Public Defender Jonathan Petrak concurred.

“I’ve been in his courtroom every day for the past two years and the thing that stands out in my mind is his fairness and predictability,” he said. “Whether he agrees with my opinion or not he will always listen respectfully. And that’s all I can ask.”

“I wouldn’t say that the milk of human kindness flows through every vein,” said defense attorney Robert Sheahan. “It doesn’t have to for that person to be a good judge. Sandy Kriegler is a good judge. He’s good on the law and he’s good on the issues.”