Manuel L Real

Attorney Gary Dubin was in a Honolulu hospital, sedated and suffering from depression after the death of his son, when U.S. District Judge Manuel L. Real had him handcuffed and taken to court -- still in his hospital gown -- to answer charges of failing to file tax returns. Real allowed him to send for clothes but refused to postpone the hearing, recalled Dubin, who had to defend himself in a medicated fog without his case files. Judged guilty by Real after a two-day bench trial, Dubin spent 19 1/2 months in federal prison, while his home went into foreclosure and his credit was ruined by identity thieves.

A federal appeals court Friday criticized U.S. District Judge Manuel L. Real for his handling of $33.8 million entrusted to him for victims of the late Philippines dictator Ferdinand Marcos, calling his accounting "curious" and "filled with cryptic notations" that failed to show what happened to the money. The three-judge panel of the U.S. 9th Circuit Court of Appeals ordered a new accounting of the disputed assets by a different judge -- a rare act of implied censure that Real has now endured at least 11 times in his long judicial career.

A judicial discipline council has voted overwhelmingly to impose sanctions on a veteran Los Angeles federal judge who improperly seized control of a bankruptcy case to protect a probationer he was supervising. But it is far from clear when, or even whether, the decision of the judicial council of the U.S. 9th Circuit Court of Appeals in San Francisco will become officially public. On Nov. 16, the council ordered that U.S. District Judge Manuel L.

Attorney Gary Dubin was in a Honolulu hospital, sedated and suffering from depression after the death of his son, when U.S. District Judge Manuel L. Real had him handcuffed and taken to court -- still in his hospital gown -- to answer charges of failing to file tax returns. Real allowed him to send for clothes but refused to postpone the hearing, recalled Dubin, who had to defend himself in a medicated fog without his case files. Judged guilty by Real after a two-day bench trial, Dubin spent 19 1/2 months in federal prison, while his home went into foreclosure and his credit was ruined by identity thieves.

U.S. District Court Judge Manuel L. Real, who has endured a rare public censure by the federal judiciary, the threat of impeachment and removal from several cases for questionable conduct, now faces demands to account for $5 million or more in apparently missing trust funds. Lawyers for rival Filipino groups laying claim to the seized assets of late Philippines Dictator Ferdinand Marcos have petitioned a federal appeals court to demand that Real provide a detailed accounting of $35.

The U.S. 9th Circuit Court of Appeals granted a stay to Atty. Gen. Bill Lockyer over the holiday weekend, ruling that for now he does not have to make a personal appearance before a Los Angeles federal judge who had threatened to throw the state's top prosecutor in jail for contempt of court. Earlier this month, U.S. District Judge Manuel L. Real ordered that Lockyer appear in his court on Tuesday.

Citing the refusal of the chief federal judge in Los Angeles to relinquish control of a case as ordered, attorney Stephen Yagman called on a higher court Wednesday to hold U.S. District Judge Manuel L. Real in contempt. The outspoken civil rights lawyer charged in a petition prepared for the U.S. 9th Circuit Court of Appeals in San Francisco that Real has "blatantly" refused to obey the court's order to reassign a case involving alleged misconduct by Yagman.

Moving closer to a confrontation with a federal appeals court, Chief U.S. District Judge Manuel L. Real has directed the chief federal court clerk in Los Angeles to defy an order removing Real from a case in which he imposed $250,000 in sanctions on an attorney. Citing local court rules under which judges have sole authority for assigning cases, Real ordered District Court Clerk Leonard Brosnan not to comply with an order from the U.S.

After more than a decade as chief judge of the federal District Court in Los Angeles, Manuel L. Real has stepped aside, eliciting a sigh of relief from some fellow jurists, who were privately troubled by Real's volatility and image of intemperance on the bench. Early in his career, Real, now 69, was best known as a courageous judge who ordered the desegregation of the Pasadena schools.

A federal appeals court on Friday denied Chief U.S. District Judge Manuel L. Real's request for a full-scale hearing and again ordered Real to remove himself from a case in which he imposed $250,000 in sanctions against a Los Angeles attorney. In a brief order, the appeals court revealed that there had not been a single judge among the 9th Circuit's active jurists who moved to grant Real's request for a full, en banc hearing of the court on the removal issue.

U.S. District Court Judge Manuel L. Real, who has endured a rare public censure by the federal judiciary, the threat of impeachment and removal from several cases for questionable conduct, now faces demands to account for $5 million or more in apparently missing trust funds. Lawyers for rival Filipino groups laying claim to the seized assets of late Philippines Dictator Ferdinand Marcos have petitioned a federal appeals court to demand that Real provide a detailed accounting of $35.

A judicial discipline council has voted overwhelmingly to impose sanctions on a veteran Los Angeles federal judge who improperly seized control of a bankruptcy case to protect a probationer he was supervising. But it is far from clear when, or even whether, the decision of the judicial council of the U.S. 9th Circuit Court of Appeals in San Francisco will become officially public. On Nov. 16, the council ordered that U.S. District Judge Manuel L.

Embattled federal Judge Manuel L. Real told a congressional subcommittee Thursday that he did nothing wrong in seizing a bankruptcy case from another judge, insisting he was the victim of "a personal vendetta" by Venice civil rights lawyer Stephen Yagman. Real, who has been a U.S. district judge in Los Angeles since 1966, spoke before the House Judiciary Subcommittee on Courts, the Internet and Intellectual Property, which is considering his possible impeachment.

House Judiciary Committee Chairman F. James Sensenbrenner Jr. (R-Wis.) introduced a resolution on Monday to permit the committee to open an inquiry into possible grounds for the impeachment of U.S. District Judge Manuel L. Real of Los Angeles. "This resolution has become necessary due to a breakdown in the judicial branch's enforcement of the judicial discipline statute Congress enacted in 1980," Sensenbrenner said in a formal statement.

A long-running controversy involving a misconduct complaint against veteran Los Angeles federal Judge Manuel L. Real has reached the nation's capital, where it could influence legislation proposed by conservatives seeking to exert greater oversight of the federal judiciary. Real seized control from another judge of a bankruptcy involving a woman whose probation he was overseeing, permitting Deborah M.

May 5, 1994, was warm. But it was anxiety that made me sweat as I entered the venerable Biltmore Hotel in downtown Los Angeles. On this night the Federal Bar, filled predominantly with judges and attorneys, and their friends and spouses, were having a celebratory dinner for the Honorable Manuel L. Real, chief judge of the U.S. District Court for the Central District of California. The 700 attendees were garbed in conservative gray flannel and navy blue worsted.

One of the longest running controversies in local judicial history appears to have ended, with a federal judge ruling that a $250,000 sanction imposed on Venice lawyer Stephen Yagman more than seven years ago by another federal judge was unwarranted. In an order made public this week, U.S. District Judge Terry J. Hatter Jr. refused to reinstate the sanction imposed in May, 1984, by Manuel L. Real, the chief federal trial judge in Los Angeles.

Skirting a direct confrontation with the chief federal judge in Los Angeles, an appeals court Wednesday ordered a court clerk to remove chief U.S. District Judge Manuel L. Real from a controversial civil case in which he had fined a lawyer $250,000.

The U.S. 9th Circuit Court of Appeals granted a stay to Atty. Gen. Bill Lockyer over the holiday weekend, ruling that for now he does not have to make a personal appearance before a Los Angeles federal judge who had threatened to throw the state's top prosecutor in jail for contempt of court. Earlier this month, U.S. District Judge Manuel L. Real ordered that Lockyer appear in his court on Tuesday.

In a highly unusual move, a Los Angeles federal judge has ordered California Atty. Gen. Bill Lockyer to personally come to his courtroom Tuesday morning or possibly be held in contempt of court. The dispute arises out of a case in which the attorney general's office is representing Orange County authorities against the federal public defender's office, which is attempting to overturn a death penalty sentence on constitutional grounds.