Sex crime charges against former judge dismissed

NORWALK, Calif. -- Child molestation charges against a former judge were dismissed Wednesday after the U.S. Supreme Court struck down a California law allowing the prosecution of decades-old sex crimes.

Former Superior Court Judge Ronald Kline, 62, who is under house arrest for unrelated child pornography charges, could have gotten more than five years in prison if convicted.

Prosecutor Sheila Hanson said that her office was disappointed but that last week's high court ruling left no other choice.

Kline's attorney, Paul S. Meyer, said he was confident Kline would have won the case if it had gone to trial.

A man claimed that as a 12-year-old, he was molested by Kline between 1976 and 1978. The man and Kline lived in the same neighborhood.

Kline, who has stepped down from the bench, still faces a federal charge of having child pornography on his court computer.

Kline was running for re-election last year when the pornography and molestation charges surfaced. He withdrew from a November runoff election.

On June 17, a judge threw out key evidence found on Kline's home computer, ruling it had been seized after an illegal search by a hacker working as a government agent.

The ruling forced the dismissal of porn charges related to the home computer, leaving only the count related to Kline's court computer.