Greer and Frega concocted a toxic brew; Malkus' flaw eludes

    Abe Attell, agent for a New York gambler, bribed eight players to throw the first two games of the 1919 World Series. "Shoeless" Joe Jackson took the money and had no answer when a young fan implored, "Say it ain't so, Joe."

    Countless San Diego lawyers would make the same plea to former San Diego Superior Court Judge Jim Malkus. Like Jackson, Malkus is a decent person fallen, not a star blown out of the sky. Malkus showed up in court every day and played the game as it was meant to be played. You got a fair hearing and courteous treatment.

    Malkus followed the law as he saw it. Some lawyers thought he had an activist's perspective, but his appellate record refutes that charge. In 14 years on the bench, Malkus' decisions resulted in five published general reversals, none a rebuke of activist judging.

    Not one lawyer in San Diego would have taken seriously in 1992 a suggestion that Malkus took bribes or conspired to corrupt the court. Now we know Malkus acted corruptly and covered up the records of his own court, even if his convictions do not survive the inevitable appeals.

    After a University of Chicago law degree, five years as a Navy legal officer, 13 years of honorable private practice and 14 years as a respected superior court judge, what brought this man to the brink of spending his seventh decade behind bars?

    Judges Mickey Greer and Pat Frega poisoned themselves and Malkus. Together, Greer and Frega brewed toxins that neither man intended and neither man could have concocted alone.

    Greer hid a vulnerable personality behind a wall of arrogance over which he regularly poured the boiling oil of his temper. He was the most feared judge to sit in San Diego in the last 22 years. You never knew exactly what Greer wanted or what he would do if he didn’t get it.

    "Fast track" came when Greer served as presiding judge. Instead of enlisting cooperation to make it work, Greer gleefully crammed it down lawyers' throats.

    A fast track story illustrates Greer's arrogance. Civil defendants sometimes exercise a right to "remove" a case from state court to federal court. The state court loses absolutely all power to do anything in the case unless the federal court sends it back. Greer demanded that lawyers in removed cases file fast track status reports. He knew he was completely outside his jurisdiction. Whenever a lawyer showed the will to have the court of appeal stop his practice, Greer artfully backed down.

    Greer loved to hold and exercise power. Importance validated Greer. Being a superior court judge was not enough. He needed to hang out with big shots.

    Frega came from proletarian New Jersey and a little-known law school. Few lawyers compared with Frega's comfort in front of a jury. Unless restrained by the trial judge, Frega moved about the courtroom in a way that showed he owned it. He prepared diligently, doing much investigation outside the formal discovery process and maximizing the surprises he could spring on the defense. In the infamous Williams trial, he beat one of San Diego’s best and most respected trial lawyers.

    Frega, unsatisfied with the cold fact of success, shared Greer's need to validate himself with the trappings. He, too, needed to hang out with big shots. Despite the convictions, I believe Frega never thought his gifts were buying a case or a judge. He was validating himself by the quality of his friends.

    To Frega, judges were big shots with small purses. To Greer, Frega was a big shot because of his wealth and success. The relationship that brought them both down was like a folie a deux, Jerry Dominelli and Nancy Hoover without the sex. Greer must go to jail because he cannot answer why, on the morning after he realized the Mercedes had corrupted him, he did not break off the whole thing.

    Malkus' flaw eludes like Joe Jackson's. Probably he just followed the trail his dominant friend, Greer, was cutting. Malkus must have had a night, like Greer's, when he realized he had gone too far. Jim, you can’t say it ain't so.

    Dennis Adams, the last of the convicted judges and a man who may still believe a pure heart will save him from the consequences of bad judgment, presents the saddest case of all. Perhaps he can say it ain't so, but who is listening?

    Charles A. Bird, a partner at Luce, Forward, Hamilton & Scripps, has been practicing law since 1973.