BY JAY WEAVER AND ALFONSO CHARDY

 Facing the sunshine-like glare of the Elian Gonzalez dispute, Senior U.S. District
 Judge James Lawrence King asked attorneys Thursday whether they want him to
 remove himself from the case either because of his indirect ties to people involved
 in the dispute or his busy schedule.

 The lawyers for Elian's Miami relatives said they don't want him to step aside. But
 U.S. Attorney Thomas Scott said he needed to consult with Attorney General
 Janet Reno and Justice Department lawyers before giving an answer.

 King is expected to decide today whether to step down.

 The judge formally disclosed Thursday that his son Larry, a Miami-Dade County
 judge, hired a political consultant for his election campaign who is organizing the
 local effort to stop Elian's return to his father in Cuba.

 King also disclosed that his daughter Mary is deputy chief of the public corruption
 division in the U.S. attorney's office in Miami.

 And the judge cautioned the battling attorneys for the federal government and
 those for the Miami relatives that he will be busy with an ongoing jewelry-fraud
 criminal trial during the next few weeks.

 UNUSUAL MOVE

 King, who was randomly assigned 6-year-old Elian's high-profile immigration
 dispute on Wednesday, made the extraordinary move of giving both parties until
 12 noon today to tell him whether they want him to step aside. The judge, known
 for his favorable rulings for immigrants including Cuban refugees, said he would
 respond about removing himself from the Elian case in the afternoon.

 King acknowledged that he felt obliged to make the disclosures after his son,
 Lawrence D. King, called to inform him of his professional ties to political advisor
 Armando Gutierrez.

 ``I will certainly give grave consideration to any objection,'' said King, 72, a federal
 judge since 1970. ``I wanted to make a full and complete disclosure.''

 Gutierrez, a well-known judicial campaign consultant, has voluntarily worked
 around the clock with Elian's Miami relatives, who are trying to block Elian's
 return to Cuba.

 Attorney Jose Garcia-Pedrosa, representing the relatives, immediately told King
 on Thursday that he should stay on as judge. ``We have absolutely no objection
 to your honor presiding over this case,'' he said.

 But Scott, a former Miami federal judge himself, asked King if he could deliver his
 response in 24 hours after checking with Reno. ``Whatever the court decides, we
 would accept,'' Scott said.

 Reno has emphatically backed the Immigration and Naturalization Service's
 decision to send Elian back to his father, Juan Miguel Gonzalez, in Cuba. The
 INS ruled that Elian, who survived a tragic boat journey from Cuba that cost the
 life of his mother, is too young to determine his own fate.

 The attorneys for Elian's great-uncle, Lazaro Gonzalez, are challenging the INS
 ruling on grounds that the agency violated the boy's constitutional rights because
 it never allowed him an asylum hearing, as requested by his Miami relatives.

 ASSIGNMENT MOCKED

 The Castro government mocked the assignment of the relatives' case to King,
 who has a reputation for being sympathetic toward Cuban exiles in court.

 ``What a coincidence!'' Granma, the Communist Party daily, said in an editorial.

 ``If Judge King rules in favor of the [Cuban exile] mafia, the U.S. government will
 have to seek recourse at the Fourth Circuit of Appeals in Atlanta.''

 The instant publicity over the political ties between King's son and Gutierrez
 stopped the case from even getting started before the judge. Normally, King would
 not have been compelled to disclose the information.

 The son, first appointed as county judge in 1998 and now up for election in the
 fall, paid a consulting fee of $1,500 to Gutierrez and about $469 to his wife
 Maritza Gutierrez's advertising business last year.

 Last week, Miami-Dade Circuit Judge Rosa Rodriguez gave emergency custody
 of Elian to his great-uncle so that he and his father could face off for temporary
 custody of the boy in March. Reno said Rodriguez's family court ruling carried no
 legal weight in an immigration dispute.

 But before her decision, Rodriguez did not disclose that her 1998 judicial
 campaign paid Gutierrez $10,000 for his political advice and another $53,446.22
 to his wife for advertising and other promotions. After her professional relationship
 with the publicist for Elian's relatives became common knowledge last week,
 Rodriguez found herself the subject of criticism.

 NO OBLIGATION

 The Miami-Dade Circuit Court issued a statement on her behalf saying Rodriguez
 had no obligation to disclose her political links to Gutierrez under the Canons of
 Judicial Ethics. Those canons require judges to ``avoid impropriety and the
 appearance of impropriety.''

 One legal ethicist said King's disclosures were unnecessary under the Code of
 Judicial Conduct -- but welcomed them anyway.

 ``What has happened is everybody is going the other way and being overly
 cautious,'' said Robert Jarvis, a Nova Southeastern University law professor.

 ``Before the Rodriguez matter, it wouldn't have occurred to King to disclose this
 relationship,'' he added. ``But I don't think it's a bad thing for judges to make these
 kinds of disclosure because it clears the air.''

 Jarvis said he was also struck by Scott's reluctance to give King an immediate
 response to the judge's question about removing himself -- given that Scott is a
 former federal judge and colleague of King's.

 OBLIVIOUS TO STORM

 Meanwhile, little Elian, who stayed home Thursday from school because of a
 stomach ache, seemed oblivious to the legal storm over his fate.

 The legal developments added to what appeared to be a day of tension for his
 Miami relatives, following unusual events around their Little Havana home.

 At midnight Wednesday, an unidentified man stopped a yellow car in front of the
 house, jumped out of the vehicle, then over the fence. He went to the door and
 knocked, yelling for Marisleysis Gonzalez, Elian's 21-year-old cousin. She came
 out, and left with the man.

 Several hours later, before sunrise Thursday, another man recognized by some as
 a security expert also jumped over the fence, yelling for Lazaro Gonzalez to come
 out.

 But Elian's great-uncle did not come out. And, after a few minutes, the man
 jumped back over the fence onto the sidewalk and left.

 Following the incidents, two Miami police officers showed up at the house
 Thursday morning to talk with Lazaro and his brother, Delfin Gonzalez.

 The overnight incidents followed reports of a telephone death threat to Delfin.
 Lazaro Gonzalez declined to provide information about any of the incidents.

 Herald translator Renato Perez contributed to this report.
 

                     Copyright 2000 Miami Herald