By a MetNews Staff Writer

Los Angeles Superior Court Judge Patrick Murphy said yesterday that a "phobia" of the court left him unfit to resume his duties on the bench but capable of approving search warrants, teaching law classes, taking exams, exploring new careers and beginning medical school in the Caribbean.

Testifying on his own behalf on the third day of proceedings by the Commission on Judicial Performance, Murphy said a combination of physical, psychological and emotional problems disabled him and caused him to miss hundreds of days of court time.

Acting as his own counsel, Murphy narrated his testimony from a makeshift witness box that usually serves as the clerk's desk in the Fourth District Court of Appeal courtroom in Riverside. He is charged by the commission with being away from court for an excessive amount of time and bringing the court into disrepute.

Although he was left exhausted and in physical pain by a combination of Epstein-Barr virus, chronic fatigue syndrome and fibromyalgia, Murphy testified, it was an emotional condition that kept him from resuming his bench duties. He said doctors told him his desire to excel in his job created a phobia that prevented him from serving at all.

He "vacillated" repeatedly between planning to resign his judgeship, applying for permanent disability and pressing on with trying to resume his duties, Murphy told the three-justice panel that is hearing the case.

But the justices questioned him repeatedly on just when he planned to resign or apply for disability.

"What was your intention when you walked on the plane" to medical school in the Caribbean island of Dominica in January 2000, Justice Art McKinster asked the judge.

Murphy said he thought his lawyer had already applied on his behalf for disability, which would have prevented him from ever again serving as an judge or an attorney. But he said he believed such a filing legally would have no effect on his ability to become a doctor or engage in another profession.

In fact, Murphy said, he dropped out of medical school after two weeks, returned to Los Angeles, learned his disability application had not been sent and asked to resume work as a judge. Murphy did return to the bench in April 2000, but again took sick leave in June.

"I know that this is something that looks absolutely terrible," Murphy said. But he said studying science and medicine was a pleasure to him and imposed none of the "stress" he found in duties he acknowledged as relatively "easy" such as hearing traffic cases.

Murphy said he did everything with the intention of acting in the best interests of the court as well as himself. But he also acknowledged that, in retrospect, he failed.

"I absolutely acknowledge the appearance of impropriety here and in the court," the judge said. "I did in fact bring the judiciary in disrepute, and I'm not debating that. I admit that it absolutely did."

He said he was "extremely sorry" for bringing embarrassment on the court.

Earlier, Murphy testified that his doctors found him to be permanently disabled as early as April 1999. But he said he did not accept the diagnosis and insisted on trying to return to a job he said he loved.

He said he sought psychiatric care and said he was told he suffered panic attacks and a phobic disorder triggered by being in the courtroom.

He said he was told "I am hypervigilant," Murphy said. "I hold myself to too high and exacting a standard....I absolutely stress myself out."