Inside a wire cage in the back of an Orange County courtroom, a middle-aged woman barely a smidgen taller than 4 feet stands up to answer charges of petty theft.
"She's a little thing," says Superior Court Judge James M. Brooks. "Is she on her knees?"
Without warning, he rises from the bench and puts his hands on his hips as he addresses her, pretending he doesn't believe she can really be so small.
"Are you trying to fool me?" he says, unable to keep a straight face.
She smiles back at him. The slapstick plays well with the crowd. And minutes later, Brooks is at it again, poking good-natured fun at a bailiff who enters the courtroom.
"What's he doing in here?" the judge deadpans. "We're not giving away Twinkies."
The bailiff chuckles. Laughter echoes around him. Brooks is just getting warmed up as he works his way through a heavy calendar of misdemeanor arraignments on a Monday afternoon in August.
In his 21 years as a judge, Brooks has been loved, loathed and repeatedly scolded for his courtroom behavior.
His biggest critics have found his shtick infuriating, insulting and even racist, and in some cases the state judicial commission and 4th District Court of Appeal have agreed.
His biggest supporters consider him a passionate and hardworking public servant and credit him for livening up legal proceedings that can often be brutally mundane.
Like him or not, and despite the trouble he's been in, Brooks is still going for punch lines.
"No cash," he instructs a defendant on that same busy August afternoon, joking that a court fine could be paid only by check or money order because "there's a lot of dishonest people around -- a lot of lawyers."
Interview declined
Brooks, 70, declined to be interviewed about his career. His closest associates say he has been somewhat reluctant to talk to the press after unflattering portrayals of him and more guarded about his family's privacy since the death of his youngest daughter 2 1/2 years ago.
A Midwestern native and a graduate of Southwestern University School of Law in Los Angeles, Brooks was elected a municipal judge in 1986 after serving 15 years as a prosecutor, in Los Angeles for a year and then in Orange County.
He gained notoriety in 1991 when members of the anti-abortion group Operation Rescue swarmed his front lawn. Angry that Brooks had fined demonstrators for blocking traffic during a protest at a Planned Parenthood clinic, the picketers returned over several days, sometimes 50 strong, chanting and praying.
