Massachusetts judge suspended

BOSTON (AP) -The chief justice of the Massachusetts Superior Court, under suspension pending an investigation of his conduct, conferred with attorneys yesterday about whether to keep up his fight to stay on the bench.

The state Supreme Judicial Court, which suspended Robert M. Bonin Thursday, said its action was in "the public

interest."

The suspension came after Bonin attended a lecture held to benefit men awaiting Superior Court trial on homosexual offenses. That created the latest in a series of controversies.

: "Public confidence will, in the long run, be more seriously diminished if a judicial officer... is suspended, even temporarily, without any charges hav-

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ing been made,” attorney Paul Sugarman told the judges in a hearing in the high court's chamber.

Bonin's wife Angela, fighting back tears, called the pressure on her husband a "witch hunt.’

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When he was nominated, Bonin was praised as an administrator who would carry out a court reform plan drafted by Harvard Prof. Archibald Cox, former Watergate special prosecutor.

But soon after he became a judge, it was disclosed that Bonin had received $1,000 a month as a counsel's fee from a private company while he was assistant attorney general, and that his wife had free use of a car the company leased for $200 a month after he was sworn in as chief justice.