A member of the state's judicial disciplinary agency says it was trying to protect the public when it charged First District Court of Appeal Presiding Justice J. Anthony Kline with misconduct for flouting a state Supreme Court ruling, the National Law Journal is reporting. 

"We are not wild-eyed wackos," Don Vinson, a non-lawyer jury consultant appointed to the Commission on Judicial Performance last year by Gov. Pete Wilson, said in an interview to be published today by the weekly newsmagazine. 

Vinson's comments came as the commission sought to deal with a torrent of criticism by legislators, judges, lawyers, and legal commentators, including some conservatives. Critics accused the commission of overstepping its authority and trying to punish a judge for expressing legal opinions. 

To that end, the commission issued a press release Friday, saying it wanted to correct "misunderstandings that have been generated by the publicity concerning" the charges made public last Monday. 

Kline, the commission alleges, committed misconduct when he wrote that he could no longer follow a 1992 state Supreme Court ruling that allows parties in a civil lawsuit, as part of a settlement, to erase all previous court decisions in their case. 

He said the ruling allowed private parties to buy and sell court judgments and should be reconsidered by the state's high court, which declined the invitation. 

Friday's release added nothing to the statement issued by the commission on Monday, but emphasized that the filing of charges isn't a formal determination of misconduct, that the allegations are based on a single opinion, and that the issue is not Kline's criticism of Neary v. Regents of the University of California but his "voting against a motion which he expressly acknowledged that the law required by granted and stating that he would continue to refuse to grant such motions unless specifically ordered to do so by the Supreme Court." 

The commission's "clarifications" did little to impress Los Angeles Superior Court Judge J. Stephen Czuleger, a member of the California Judges Association's executive board who has vowed to bring the case up for discussion at the board's Aug. 1 meeting. 

What the commission still fails to grasp, Czuleger told the MetNews, "is the chilling effect" that the filing of charges could have on judges, regardless of the outcome of the proceedings. 

But Vinson, the National Law Journal reported, said critics may not have grasped that it is the commission's job to "protect the public." Whether it is drunken driving laws or Supreme Court precedent, "the commission is supposed to see that judges follow the law...and the canons of judicial ethics," Vinson said. 

The commission announced charges of willful misconduct July 6 against J. Anthony Kline for a dissenting opinion he wrote last December. 

In its formal notice of charges, the commission said Kline violated his duty to follow the law, which includes Supreme Court precedents. Willful misconduct, the most serious category of ethical violation, can be punished by removal from the bench. 

Commission staff director Victoria Henley said the commission, under its rules, would have no further comment on the charges until a public hearing before a panel appointed by the state Supreme Court. 

But Vinson told the National Law Journal that "I think it is in the public's interest that we help them to understand" what the commission did. 

He did not say where the charges originated or give details of the vote, which required a majority of the nine participating commission members. 

But Vinson said he has seen no evidence of political bias in the commission's deliberations, despite suspicions voiced by some of Kline's supporters that conservative commissioners were going after a liberal justice who worked with Democratic gubernatorial nominee Gray Davis in the administration of former Gov. Jerry Brown. 

Vinson said the anger aimed at the commission has made him suspicious. 

"Everybody was out there so fast, you have to wonder if it was orchestrated," he said.