U.S. District Judge Edward Rafeedie, whose decisions in several high-profile trials -- including the 1990 case of a Mexican doctor accused of torturing a U.S. drug enforcement agent -- earned him a reputation as a no-nonsense jurist with an independent streak, died of cancer Tuesday at his home in Malibu. He was 79.
President Reagan appointed Rafeedie to the federal bench in 1982, one of 13 judges named by the president during a four-year period in the 1980s who came to form a conservative majority at the U.S. courthouse in Los Angeles. The distinction of being a "Reagan judge" was not always a predictor of Rafeedie's decisions.
In 1990, Rafeedie stunned the Justice Department when he ruled that the kidnapping of Dr. Humberto Alvarez Machain was illegal and ordered him returned to Mexico. Alvarez Machain had been accused of helping drug traffickers torture and kill U.S. drug agent Enrique "Kiki" Camarena, who was murdered in Mexico in 1985. The U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration paid a band of Mexican citizens to kidnap Alvarez Machain in Mexico and flew him to the U.S. to stand trial -- an act that caused an international outcry and strained relations between the two countries.
Rafeedie's ruling that the kidnapping violated a U.S.-Mexico extradition treaty surprised and angered government agents. The U.S. Supreme Court overruled the judge's decision. But in 1992 Rafeedie granted a request for dismissal, arguing that the evidence did not support the charges against Alvarez Machain.
"His decisions in the Alvarez case were very courageous in the midst of a very contentious case; the government and the public at large were opposed to the defendant," said Paul Hoffman, former legal director of the American Civil Liberties Union of Southern California and one of the attorneys who represented Alvarez Machain. "I don't think he was in general perceived to be soft on criminals or in criminal cases. I think he was just a fair man."
The son of Palestinian immigrants, Rafeedie was born Jan. 6, 1929, in Orange, N.J. When he was 7, the family moved to Santa Monica, and, five years later, Rafeedie was working in the old Pacific Ocean Park, operating rides.
"He was born in America, and then his parents took him back" to the Middle East for a time, said his daughter-in-law, Elizabeth Rafeedie. "He actually lived there when it was occupied by Britain. He recalled throwing stones at the British soldiers."
