Commission on Judicial Performance admonishment of Judge John Lord.

California's judicial watchdog agency on Wednesday admonished a Los Angeles County judge for talking to a reporter about a pending case and for publicly suggesting prosecutors gave preferential treatment to a white domestic violence victim.

The Commission on Judicial Performance said Superior Court Judge John Lord is guilty “at a minimum” of improper action for speaking with the Grunion Gazette, a Long Beach news outlet, about why he did not issue a protective order in a 2015 domestic violence case.

A jury in Lord's courtroom found defendant Melvin Roberts guilty of misdemeanor domestic violence in February 2015. Roberts asked for a new trial. Before the hearing on the request took place, Lord told the Gazette in an interview that he didn't issue a protective order for the victim in the case because he wanted “everything to remain the status quo.”

Lord's comments were printed in a March 26, 2015, Gazette article in which a victim's advocate said the judge at the end of the trial appeared to advise the defendant's attorney to seek a new trial.

Judicial canons bar judges from talking about pending cases.

“Judge Lord's comments, at a minimum, created the impression that he was defending his statements and rulings in Roberts and may have also created the appearance that he was embroiled in the Roberts case,” the commission wrote.

When Roberts returned to Lord's courtroom in April for his retrial motion, the judge accused prosecutors of treating Roberts' wife better than another woman, “Ms. Sarres,” who had also sought a protective order.

“Ms. Sarres has as her perpetrator a convicted felon, long history of violence, Ms. Sarres gets almost no protection from the City Prosecutor's Office whereas Mrs. Roberts, who's as white as a piece of Wonder Bread, gets all kinds of protection and attention from the prosecution office,” Lord said, according to a partial court transcript included in the commission's decision.

Lord's “flippant remark about the victim in the Roberts case being 'as white as a piece of Wonder Bread' was inconsistent with canon 3B(4), which requires judges to be patient, dignified and courteous to those with whom they deal in an official capacity, and may have furthered the appearance that the judge was embroiled in the Roberts case,” commissioners wrote.

Neither Lord, nor his attorney, Edith Matthai of Robie & Matthai, could be reached for comment Wednesday afternoon.

The commission said it took into account Lord's past discipline in deciding to issue a public admonishment. In 2016 he was privately admonished for becoming embroiled with a criminal defense attorney, including improperly starting a contempt proceeding against the lawyer.

In 2011 he received an advisory letter for accusing a pro per criminal defendant of “misrepresenting facts” and engaging in “gamesmanship.”

The CJP's admonishment is posted below: