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HECTOR BECERRA, Los Angeles Times

LOS ANGELES — On a recent morning, Mexican criminal-court judge Reynaldo Madruga Picazzo sat in the back of a downtown Los Angeles courtroom and watched as a police officer testified in the case of an accused gang member and a gun.

Over the years, the 72-year-old had presided over many murder and kidnapping trials in his country. Always, he was judge and jury. No one ever took the stand in his courtroom. Picazzo pored over reams of paper trails, outlining accusations and defenses, and dispensed justice.

The L.A. case wasn’t exactly the stuff of a “Law & Order” episode, but its mundane proceedings were extraordinary to Picazzo in what they augured for Mexico’s judicial future.

“I am really surprised with what I’ve seen this morning, in the first place because of the transparency,” said Picazzo, chief justice for the state of Veracruz. “The access the public has makes them truly public proceedings. That is a factor that can reduce corruption. It is harder to bribe someone of the court, even a judge, if everything is public.”

Converting to U.S.-style system in 2016

By 2016, all 31 Mexican states are expected to convert to a U.S.-style court system, with defendants for the first time facing their accusers in public court and witnesses taking the stand at trial. Picazzo called it “the most profound reform done in our justice system in 100 years,” as he and six other Mexican judges toured Los Angeles courtrooms recently.

The conversion comes at a time of upheaval in Mexico. Many states have been rocked by a brutal war between drug cartels and the government, and the conflict has claimed more than 22,000 lives.

On the weekend the judges arrived, 24 people were killed in 24 hours during a spasm of drug-related mayhem in Chihuahua. During a visit to the Los Angeles Police Department Police Academy, one of the Chihuahua judges reacted with dark humor to the near-constant barrage of gunfire from the firing range.

“Ay, I feel like I’m back in Juarez,” blurted Catalina Ruiz Pacheco, 49, as she used a fan to cool down.

The fact that they were learning about American justice in a city shaped substantially by a Mexican history and by waves of immigrants from Mexico was not lost on the judges. Nor was the fact that many of the children of those Mexican immigrants now occupy higher rungs of L.A.’s government.

American judges learning too

The trip was organized and led by Teresa Sanchez-Gordon, a Mexican-American Superior Court judge who grew up in East L.A. and has led American judges on trips to Mexico.

“The Mexican American and immigrant community is significant both in the county and the courts,” Sanchez-Gordon said. “The court is less than 150 miles from the Mexican border. I believe this court is the ideal venue in all aspects to learn about American justice.”

Over three days, the judges sat in on court proceedings, stepped into jails and visited a state-of-the-art crime lab at Cal State Los Angeles. Nearly everywhere they went, they asked one question in particular.

“I have a question that is very important to us in Mexico,” Picazzo told LAPD Deputy Chief Terry Hara at the Police Academy. “Are Los Angeles police officers paid well? The police in Mexico are paid very poorly.”

 

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Story Compliments Of The LA Times