Patterico's Pontifications

11/1/2010

Judicial Recommendations

Filed under: General — Patterico @ 8:36 pm



Several people have e-mailed me for recommendations in judicial races.

My top recommendation for Los Angeles voters: vote for Alan Schneider for Superior Court Judge in Office 117. Alan, whom I know personally, is in a runoff. He is a colleague of mine in the gang unit in the L.A. County District Attorney’s Office. If you would like to know more about him, you can read this previous post of mine or check out his web site to read about his impressive accomplishments.

Beyond that, most of the judges are in retention elections: they are appellate judges as to whom you vote “yes” or “no.” If I don’t urge a “yes” vote that doesn’t mean I dislike the judge. I’d be fine with almost all of them. In most cases I don’t particularly know the judges that well and don’t have a strong opinion — with two notable exceptions.

I have great respect for Steve Suzukawa, who has an excellent reputation and before whom I have appeared.

Also, Elizabeth Grimes is well known to longtime Patterico readers as someone who said the following about our friend Cyrus Sanai:

Plaintiff has proliferated needless, baseless pleadings that now occupy about 15 volumes of Superior Court files, not to mention the numerous briefs submitted in the course of the forays into the Court of Appeal and attempts to get before the Supreme Court, and not one pleading appears to have had substantial merit. The genesis of this lawsuit, and the unwarranted grief and expense it has spawned, are an outrage.

So she has that going for her.

So those are my three recommendations: “yes” on Suzukawa and Grimes, and a strong recommendation to vote for Alan Schneider.

Please let me know in comments if this was meaningful to you.

25 Responses to “Judicial Recommendations”

  1. Not an LA or CA guy.

    Torquemada (a8a9b2)

  2. I’d love to hear Florida recommendations. I’m lost.

    JohnnyEk (7f5fad)

  3. Patterico, if there was a judge you thought we should vote no on, would you tell us?

    Mark1971 (0c13f0)

  4. I found this website to be helpful in California. It recommends judges who rule by their adherence to the rule of law and exposes which judges are more activist judges. All the recommendations corrsponded to Pattericos 3 recommendations as well.

    It is called judgevoterguide dot com.

    Brett (5f9a26)

  5. Patterico, if there was a judge you thought we should vote no on, would you tell us?

    That’s a good and fair question. I hadn’t really thought about it.

    I would certainly tell you that such a judge existed. Whether I would name the judge would depend on a number of factors: how strongly do I feel about it; what are the reasons; how likely am I to have contact with the judge; etc.

    I don’t spend a lot of time these days poring over the individual votes of members of the California Supreme Court, for example, so I don’t have strong opinions about them the way I do about Supreme Court justices or 9th Circuit judges. If Reinhardt somehow could come up for an election, for example, I would certainly oppose him.

    Bottom line: there is nobody that I would actively oppose in this race, but in some cases that may be due to ignorance.

    Patterico (c218bd)

  6. I was just wondering if you would not want to piss off a judge that you might be arguing a case in front of at some point.

    I’m filling out my ballot now and I will go with your recommendations here.

    Mark1971 (0c13f0)

  7. Thanks. This is one LA County civil practitioner who always appreciates your recommendations and makes it a point to check them before each election.

    Belial (1fb129)

  8. If the CA Supreme Court gay marriage cases affect your vote, Carlos Moreno (up for retention) voted 4-3 in favor of gay marriage before Prop 8 and then was the lone vote to declare Prop 8 unconstitutional after it passed.

    Kevin M (298030)

  9. Thank you for your recommendation.

    Kevin, I’m seriously considering voting ‘no’ on Moreno – not because of the original In re Marriages decision, which I agreed with, but because of his dissent in Strauss v. Horton. The claims of those who wanted Prop 8. overturned were absurd, and his decision had the appearance of being politically motivated.

    aphrael (fe2ce4)

  10. as one of the people whining for your views on the issue, thanks.

    also, thanks to all for the comments viz a viz Moreno, thanks: i’m voting to throw him out.

    redc1c4 (fb8750)

  11. aphrael–

    My thinking exactly. Unless based on the federal 14th amendment, which they studiously avoided, the arguments to overturn (e.g. “revision”) were silly. Moreno wasn’t voting the law.

    He’ll get past anyway, of course.

    Kevin M (298030)

  12. And thanks to Patterico for recommendations. One seldom has much to go on.

    Kevin M (298030)

  13. Another LA civil practitioner who found these recommendations, like your ones in previous elections, very helpful. Thanks!

    By the way, let me put in a plug for appellate justice Mallano, also up for retention. Long time ago, when he was still on the Superior Court in Torrance, he showed what struck me as a little extra amount of integrity. Don’t know anything about his politics, and haven’t appeared before him in many years, but scrupulous honesty is a good thing in a judge.

    RL in Glendale (f99fdc)

  14. Re: Elizabeth Grimes.

    As usual Patterico, you don’t tell the whole story.

    The language you quote was set out by the Court of Appeal just before they tossed her off the case after reversing every decision she made in the case in two separate opinions. She is a terrible judge for the simple reason that she does not follow the law. Indeed, she had double the reversal rate of the typical Superior Court judge, including being criticized in a different case for deciding a complex summary judgment motion by reading one page of evidence.

    If the LA Times trumpeted a quote like that from a case in which the author of the quote was reversed and thrown off the case for bias and misconduct, you would scream about the bias of the media. Its good that you can’t resist taking cheap, meretricious shots like that–the more provable dishonesty you reveal, the better.

    Cyrus Sanai (14877b)

  15. Idiot.

    You must have your phone set to alert you whenever your name is mentioned on the internet. I’m impressed it took you 4 hours to comment.

    The Departed (d027b8)

  16. the more provable dishonesty you reveal, the better.

    Let’s make no bones about it. Cyrus is threatening to sue Patterico. For his opinion of a judge’s performance.

    Cyrus is willing to attack people for seemingly unrelated gains. Trusting anything he says is crazy.

    So trust these guys:

    Plaintiffs’ conduct in this litigation has been an indescribable abuse of the legal process, unlike anything this Judge has experienced in more than 17 years on the bench and 26 years in private practice: outrageous, disrespectful, and in bad faith. – Judge Zilly

    Speaking of misplaced legal discipline, one wonders why Kozinski is facing investigation [he was cleared, of course] while Cyrus Sanai has avoided legal discipline from the bar. -Overlawyered

    It is Defendants’ position that [Sanai’s] entire action had no legitimate purpose, and was filed merely for purposes of harassment, and in bad faith. -Judge Green

    Complainant filed three misconduct complaints naming nineteen federal judges, raising many frivolous claims. Complainant reiterated allegations previously dismissed, without providing new supporting evidence, and admitted using the misconduct process to further his litigation strategy, a clearly improper purpose. -9th Circuit Judicial Counsel

    Dustin (b54cdc)

  17. Congrats, good post, hope you’re feeling new again.

    gary gulrud (790d43)

  18. Any recommendations for San Diego judges?

    Brother Bradley J. Fikes, C.O.R. (fb9e90)

  19. Thanks! Will vote accordingly. Thanks too for Brett’s website recommendation.

    Golden Eagle (4e9369)

  20. Other judicial recommendations at the link:
    http://www.judgevoterguide.com/#orange-county

    thomas (3e3fee)

  21. Strongly recommend a votefor Matt Wilson for the Georgia Supreme Court over incumbent David Nahmias. Both are conservatives, but Nahmias’ judicial philosophy can’t be described any way other than “corporatist.” He has no problem trampling on constitutional rights when it benefits a corporation (and, unfortunately, often a corporate interest to whom he has a connection). Wilson owes no such political or personal allegience. My two cents. I’m not connected to Matt’s campaign, but I am a practicing attorney in Savannah with an interest in who sits on our top court. For more on why Daavid Nahmias is not the best choice for Georgia, see this analysis of Nahmias’ inability to respect precedent and the constitution from one of our top appellate lawyers, Charles Cork – http://corklaw.com/GCC/15.htm

    Drew (aa5509)

  22. Your input on judges is much appreciated. I also find using Google for judges’ backgrounds useful.

    Bar Sinister (d47790)

  23. A note for Californians – if an appellate court justice loses retention, the new governor gets to pick a replacement. Unless the sitting justice would be as bad as or worse than the average Jerry Brown pick, voting no would lead to a negative outcome.

    NickM (9d1bb3)

  24. NickM sounds like a smart guy to me.

    I’d be very, very careful about throwing reasonably good judges out.

    Dustin (b54cdc)

  25. Meaningful, yes, as far as it went, but a little late, since I’d already voted absentee. Turn out, though, that I scored on all three of your recommendations.

    James Fulton (7b8fcc)


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