SAN BERNARDINO, Dec. 14 — Los Angeles attorney Irving A. Kanarek has filed suit against Los Angeles County for $90,000 he says the county owes him for representing Charles Manson during the 1970-71 Tate-LaBianca murder trial.

Kanarek’s petition was recently transferred to the Fourth District Court of Appeal, sitting in San Bernardino, by order of the California Supreme Court. No date has been set for the hearing.

According to Kanarek’s petition, Judge Charles H. Older refused to authorize him any payment whatsoever for representing Manson.

Manson is now housed at Folsom Prison after a transfer from San Quentin’s Death Row about three months ago.

In transcripts of court proceedings cited by Kanarek, Judge Older authorized Kanarek to substitute as Manson’s counsel on June 1, 1970, for the late Ronald Hughes.

Manson had previously been declared indigent and the Public Defender was not available because of a conflict due to that office’s representation of a co-defendant.

The judge held that he would permit Manson to be represented by the attorney of his choice — Kanarek — as a “private arrangement,” but that if Manson wanted the judge to appoint a lawyer for him, the judge would appoint a lawyer of the court’s choice.

Kanarek alleged that after he entered the case, “Personnel of the Los Angeles County District Attorney’s Office mounted an unprecedented personal attack upon petitioner (Kanarek) to attempt to structure it so that petitioner would not represent Charles Manson. This personal attack occurred not only in court proceedings but out of court statements were made to people connected with the mass media which widely disseminated statements derogatory to petitioner.”

Kanarek argued that he was entitled to payment by the court in spite of Judge Older’s ruling because of its coercive nature, and because it denied Manson a legal right to an attorney of his own choice. He cited an appellate court ruling supporting his position in a similar situation in the case of Fleeta Drumgo, one of the three so-called “Soledad Brothers” accused of the murder of a prison guard.

“There is no rational reason why the mere fact of payment by public funds should infringe on the right to choose one’s own attorney if a private attorney is in fact to represent the indigent. The
function of the Court is to judge; not sit as Big Brother a la 1984 over the Bar and poverty-stricken or indigent defendants,” Kanarek said.

The trial began on June 16, 1970, concluding after about 164 trial days on April 19, 1971, with guilty verdicts for Manson and three women co-defendants.

By ALAN ASHBY