Judge Jack Tanner Wrestled Brando And Racism

In staid, custom-bound federal courtrooms, it would be strange to say that any judge has ``charisma,'' but U.S. District Court Judge Jack Tanner, of Tacoma, has exactly that quality.

If he walked into a room behind you, you would immediately sense he was there.

Go outside his chambers and accompany him into the streets, parking lots and restaurants of Tacoma, and you will know that you are walking with a celebrity. ``Hi, Judge.'' ``How's it going, Jack?'' ``Hey, Jack, keeping busy?''

Judge Tanner stops and talks to most of them. They are his friends. He is called ``Jack'' more often than ``Judge'' and ``Mr.'' more often than ``Your Honor.''

Tanner has that quality - not always just his celebrity status - that draws people to him. He enjoys people; they enjoy him.

For one example, we ran into George Chemeres, the fight manager, who greeted Tanner like a long-lost brother. The judge listened patiently as Chemeres described, blow-by-blow, his negotiations on behalf of a fighter.

Later, when I expressed surprise over the Chemeres meeting, Tanner laughed. ``I know 'em all, or I knew them all.

``I know Don King, the fight promoter. I know Archie Moore. I knew Joe Louis and Sugar Ray Robinson. I was one of Muhammad Ali's lawyers during the days when he refused to serve in Vietnam.''

Not just athletes, although he knows a ton of those. Entertainers, too - Dick Gregory, Harry Belafonte, Bill Cosby. He came to know them during the celebrated ``fish-in'' cases, when he represented tribal dissidents, including Bob Satiacum, the renegade.

``Lemme tell you a story,'' Tanner said. He uses this phrase often because, being a skilled raconteur, he loves to tell stories.

``This was during the fish-in on the Nisqually River,'' Judge Tanner said. ``I got a call one night at home and the guy said, `This is Marlon.'

``I said, `Marlon who?'

``He said, `Brando, Marlon Brando. You represent the tribes, I want to make a deal. I'll give your clients $500 if they let me be the first one busted on the Nisqually fish-in.''

That same night, Tanner said, he drove down to Olympia and met Brando in his hotel room. ``After a while, the room cleared out,'' Tanner said, laughing. ``Brando had this bottle of vodka and we sat up drinking. Really nice guy, I liked him.

``After a while, we got to challenging each other. Not fighting, really, but physical. We began to block and tackle each other in the hotel room and pretty soon we were down on the carpet wrestling.

``We had to be on the Nisqually at 6 that morning. We were up 'til all hours. So I came back and banged on Brando's door. He was bleary-eyed and hung over, but he made it. Brando got busted!''

Tanner laughed uproariously at the memory. The judge's laughter is infectious; get near it and you will be laughing as loud as he does. He is gregarious, funny and socially at ease with anyone, rich in the juices of humanity.

We had lunch that day in a restaurant on Commencement Bay. For nearly two hours we talked sports, politics, kids, women, ideals and what it was like growing up black in the America of the 1930s.

Many lawyers hate Judge Tanner. On the bench he can be abrupt and impatient. Frequently, he is a busy, animated questioner. In Times reporter Paul Andrews' phrase, ``He will display occasional pained looks as an attorney drones on repetitiously or waffles on a point of law.'' Critics say he bullies attorneys.

In one bar publication he was called ``the worst judge in the West.'' He has what lawyers claim to be a high reversal rate, but Tanner has many defenders.

They point to his heavy case load, with a backlog as high as 1,200 cases. Before going on senior status, Judge Tanner tried two to three times as many cases in a given month as any other federal judge.

Although Tanner does not beat you over the head with it, it's plain that he chalks up much of this criticism to white racism. One of his favorite statements is this:

``Racism reminds me of what the late Supreme Court Justice Potter Stewart said about pornography. `I may not know how to define it, but I know it when I see it.' ''

He has long been on the cutting edge of tough cases. A typical fighter, who often rules for what he sees to be the underdog, Tanner does not back off from tough cases. And his decisions are sometimes - well, ``controversial,'' to say the least.

Early on, he ruled that the Walla Walla penitentiary violates ``society's minimum standards of decency, inflicts purposeless pain and suffering . . .''

In 1983, Tanner awarded a Tacoma couple and 3-year-old child $11.7 million for injuries suffered during the child's birth at Madigan Army Medical Center. The decision was upheld, but the Circuit Court later reduced the award by $6 million.

There were others: Tanner's landmark ``comparable worth'' decision, charging sex bias against women in state salaries (later overturned) . . . A Tanner order removing tolls from the Hood Canal Bridge . . . overturning the state's exit-polling law banning media from conducting interviews within 300 feet of polling places.

There were other decisions as well, leaving in their wake bruised precedents and legal feelings.

``Tell me about the Pennwalt case,'' I asked him.

The Pennwalt case caused a furor when the Philadelphia-based chemical company admitted spilling thousands of gallons of cancer-causing sodium chlorate into Tacoma's Hylebos Waterway.

Before accepting a $1.1 million settlement, Judge Tanner demanded that the Pennwalt board chairman and CEO, Edwin Tuttle, appear in his courtroom.

Tuttle had to fly out from Philadelphia to get a tongue-lashing from Judge Tanner.

Tanner said he wished Tuttle could be charged personally for negligence in the spills.

``If it's a crime,'' Tanner said, reflecting on the case, ``then there's a responsibility involved. Someone's responsible. The only way to get their attention is to make the top guy responsible.

``I was tired of company lawyers accepting the sentence. They came in with checks in their hands. I said, referring to Tuttle, `Let him know I want him here.' That got everybody's attention.''

``This morning,'' he said, ``I sentenced a drug dealer to 10 years. He said, `I'm sorry,' but he went to jail anyway. I don't like it when a high executive says, `I'm sorry,' and he gets off. Somebody is responsible.''

Tanner tends to shrug off his critics - lawyers, fellow judges, teachers, the press - although some of them plainly get under his skin.

``As I get older,'' he said, ``I care less and less who agrees with me.'' Then he laughed. ``If too many people agree with me, then I must be doing something wrong.''

Emmett Watson's column appears Sunday, Tuesday and Thursday in the Northwest section of The Times.