Saitta was among three state judges who chose to ignore Sommermeyer's memo. "My job as a public servant has to be open to scrutiny by the public," she said. "I have to be answerable and subject to that scrutiny. I can't hide. I don't have anything to hide."
Case Study
Gene Porter
The lawyers who filled the crystal punch bowl with money at Judge Gene Porter's fundraiser at Big Bear certainly had reason to believe that he would not hesitate to hear their cases.
A Times review of lawsuits that came before Porter during his eight years on the bench shows that 61 presented possible conflicts of interest. In 50 of them, there is no statement in court records that he withdrew or disclosed the possibility of a conflict.
The 61 cases were found in a review of more than 2,000 legal actions involving members of his former law firm as well as his former legal clients, political allies, business associates and creditors.
One example involved Desert Springs Hospital in Las Vegas. Porter's law firm had listed the hospital as one of its "representative clients" in the Martindale-Hubble legal directory the year Porter was appointed to the bench. Porter had been the hospital's attorney of record in at least three lawsuits, court records show.
When six cases naming Desert Springs as the plaintiff or defendant came before Porter as a judge, there is no statement in court records that he revealed his former relationship to the hospital.
In a seventh case, in January 1997, he withdrew, saying, "Because this court represented Desert Springs at the time of this incident
But Porter did not withdraw from the other cases.
Similarly, in at least 15 cases, Porter did not disclose his longtime friendship with attorney Matthew Callister when he presided over Callister's cases. He and Callister had been friends since high school, and Callister became his close political ally when they served together in the state Assembly. Callister also served as a resident agent for a real estate company formed by Porter's wife.
In a lawsuit involving two business executives from California, Porter appointed Callister as a $200-an-hour receiver, or caretaker of assets. One of the executives, Irenemarie Kennedy of Laguna Niguel, had sued Ashik Patel of Orange, her partner in Seaspan Inc., a hotel management firm incorporated in Nevada.
