Joyce Karlin Fahey
Joyce A. Karlin, now Joyce Karlin Fahey, was a federal prosecutor, Los Angeles County Superior Court judge, and then a two-term mayor of Manhattan Beach, California. She now works as a private arbitrator and mediator.
Karlin received her J.D. degree from Loyola University Chicago School of Law in 1974. From 1977 to 1991, Karlin was an assistant United States Attorney in Los Angeles. She helped develop and prosecute some of the government's most important drug cases--among them the case against defendants in the kidnapping, torture, and murder of U.S. drug agent Enrique Camarena. She also prosecuted child pornography cases. She was appointed to the Los Angeles Superior Court in 1991 and served until 1997.
Controversy
In March 1991, Soon Ja Du, a Korean-American immigrant grocer, shot and killed Latasha Harlins, an African American teenager. The incident started when Du erroneously concluded that Harlins was stealing a bottle of orange juice. A physical confrontation between the two then ensued before Du shot her.
In the criminal trial that ensued, People v. Soon Ja Du, a jury convicted the grocer of voluntary manslaughter, recommending sixteen years in prison. It was then left to Karlin, a newly appointed judge to impose the sentence.
Karlin did not send Du to jail. Instead, she suspended the sentence with a probation, a fine, and four hundred hours of community service. She acknowledged that generally use of a firearm leads to a presumption against probation. Even so, she decided that Du's case had three factors that created an unusual circumstance overcoming the presumption.
First, Karlin took into consideration that the grocer and her family had been repeatedly burglarized and terrorized by local gang members at their store and therefore the degree of reaction was elevated. Second, Karlin focused on the ballistics expert report which found that the pressure to trigger firing of a bullet was drastically lowered for the used gun without her knowledge. The gun was altered so that the trigger pull necessary to fire the gun was drastically reduced, without needing much pressure on the trigger. The safety mechanism also did not function properly. Third, she believed that Du felt genuinely vulnerable from Latasha's preceding assault, punching Du with her fist.
Karlin believed that the district attorney was using a dangerous rhetoric when he argued that this case should be used as a showcase that crimes against African Americans do not go unpunished. Karlin saw no utilitarian rationale to imprison her, and the vengefulness of the prosecutor's demand in turn led to her conclusion that the retribution will be fulfill with the probation, fine and the community service.
Karlin’s decision was met with profound dismay and protest from the African American community and inflamed the existing tension between Korean American merchants and African American community activists.
Despite the fact that Judge Karlin's decision, along with the beating of Rodney King, had precipitated the 1992 Los Angeles riots, Judge Karlin was elected in spring 1992 to California's Superior Court. This election result was due in part to the high level of media attention she had received in the wake of her contested ruling. She received 51% of the vote, soundly defeating Bob Henry and three other candidates. She retired from the Court in 1997.