JUDGE REWRITES THE LAW - ACTIVISTS

When many professionals retire, they lace up their golf shoes and head
for the links. Some retired judges in San Francisco, however,
seemingly spend their newfound freedom releasing convicted criminals
from the clinker.

At least that seems to be the case with retired Superior Court Judge
Herbert Donaldson, who serves two days a week here as a visiting judge.

Donaldson is the judge who recently turned loose on our streets a
former rookie cop -- accused of raping two teenage prostitutes at
gunpoint -- after dropping his bail to $250,000 from $1 million.
Police, victims, activists and prosecutor Elliot Beckelman condemned
the decision.

Donaldson has done it again. A sentence he delivered last week
highlights what some call the lack of judicial accountability plaguing
our courts.

"Each judge is the lord of the manor in his own courtroom," said
Michael Pendleton of nonprofit watchdog Judicial Watch.

On Friday, Donaldson sentenced Alexis DeLaCampa for selling 138.7
grams of cocaine to plainclothes narcotics officers. He was unloading
enough coke to keep crack pushers on Market Street in business for
months -- more than 2,100 doses worth. Donaldson may not have
forgotten the law in DeLaCampa's case, but he certainly sidestepped
it, Pendleton said.

Prosecutor Angela Brown recommended three years in state prison for
DeLaCampa, a 39-year-old Richmond resident who police snagged in a
classic sting operation.

One July Tuesday morning, DeLaCampa negotiated a drug deal on his
silver Samsung cellphone with a supposed buyer -- undercover officer
Ricardo Guerrero.

The Spanish-speaking undercover officer agreed to pay him $3,100 for
five ounces of powder cocaine. Broken down into street-sized Baggies.
The drug merchant instructed the buyer to meet him at La Raza Park at
the end of Potrero Avenue near Cesar Chavez Street.

Wearing a tan baseball cap, olive shirt and tan pants, DeLaCampa met
Guerrero at the corner of the park and asked him if he had the money.
Unbeknownst to DeLaCampa, several plainclothes officers surrounded the
dealing duo.

After Guerrero pulled out a wad of green bills, DeLaCampa led him to
his 1986 red Ford Mustang convertible a few yards away. He sat in the
driver's seat and handed Guerrero a large plastic Ziplock baggie
filled with a white cakey powder.

"Give me a call if you need more product," DeLaCampa told Guerrero
after taking the cash from him.

Guerrero gave the bust signal and a few minutes later, a handful of
The City's finest descended on the commuter criminal and nabbed him,
along with his cellphone, keys to the Mustang, a Mercedes and the
decoy cash from his car.

Once he was sitting in the police station, DeLaCampa spontaneously
confessed. "Yeah ,I sold it to him. I needed the money."

Few busts are cleaner, police said.

DeLaCampa threw himself at the mercy of the court. Prosecutors
expected the first-time offender to receive six to 12 months in county
jail, his original plea.

On the day of sentencing, DeLaCampa's defense attorney asked the judge
for leniency, explaining that his client's wife had been sick since
she recently gave birth. His client stopped working to care for her
and the family was under severe financial stress, he said.

'That's not how most people solve their financial problems,'" Brown
said she told the judge.

Possession of 28.5 grams or more of cocaine, according to the law,
shows intent to sell. DeLaCampa had nearly five times that amount.

"Normally the quantity alone would prevent a judge from giving just
probation," lamented Brown. "But he exercised his considerable
discretion in this case."

Donaldson sentenced DeLaCampa to a year of home detention. He can come
and go as he pleases so long as he sets up a monitoring system with
the police department and doesn't break any more laws.

Watchdog Pendleton decried the loose use of power, which he said
occurs in all types of cases.

"Judges have taken it upon themselves to come up with own their
interpretation or improvements," he said. "They do whatever they want
with the law to get the result they want to get. We expect our juries
and everybody in the world to follow the law except the judge."

The constitutional principal of judicial independence protects judges
from nearly all censure.

If residents have a beef or repeated beefs with a judge there is
little they can do. The California Commission on Judicial Performance
investigates serious misconduct or criminal matters but, said
Pendleton, the commission is "virtually meaningless" because it
protects its own.

"If you think the cops' code of silence is bad, the judiciary is 100
times as bad.

And if you think the state (superior) courts are bad, the federal
courts are 1,000 times as bad."

So, Pendleton said, while criminals continue to take over our streets,
cops sacrifice their own safety to arrest them and prosecutors suck up
our tax dollars to finance their cases, judges answer to no one.

"(DeLaCampa) has suffered absolutely no consequences as a result of
this," fumed Brown. "I would like to be on home detention. I would
love a year at home to catch up on my reading and watch DVDs."