Times' judicial endorsements
The editorial board picks candidates for Los Angeles Superior Court.
The Los Angeles Superior Court is the nation's largest trial court, with 431 authorized judge positions. The judges' power is immense. Among other things, they can dissolve a marriage, break up a family, impose the death penalty, appoint conservators and decide whether a drug user ought to go to prison or deserves a break. But few people outside the legal profession ever face judges in the courtroom, and few voters know a great deal about who they are.
Most judges are appointed by the governor, serve out their six-year terms and are then deemed reelected if no challengers file to run against them. That's the way it was this year for 138 Los Angeles Superior Court judges up for reelection -- about a third of the bench. But one, Ralph W. Dau, was challenged and will be on the June 3 ballot along with his opponent. Six other sitting judges will appear on the ballot without opponents, because they have been targeted in a write-in campaign.
Ten other seats are open because the incumbents retired and Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger didn't have enough time to appoint successors, or otherwise decided to leave the decision to voters. That means 17 judicial seats are to be decided by the electorate. Those who win a majority on June 3 will be seated later this year. In those races in which no candidate receives more than 50% of the vote, runoffs will be held in November.The Times makes endorsements after examining each candidate, relying not just on interviews but also on reporting. We speak with lawyers who have faced off against or appeared before the candidates in court; we talk with colleagues and former clients; for those candidates whose work takes them to the courtroom, we often observe them in action. We make our recommendation based on which contender in each race we believe has the best experience, knowledge, integrity, temperament and demeanor to serve as a judge.
The Times makes the following endorsements for Superior Court judge:
Offices No. 3, 35, 41, 55, 101 and 102: We take these together because all six come to the ballot for the same reason. Ronald C. Tan, a Carson minister, is trying to recruit lawyers to unseat these judges. Tan alleges that he is concerned about appellate rulings in religious-rights cases on subjects such as abortion, same-sex marriage and evolution, but he produces no evidence that these judges are part of that concern. Instead, he has targeted six jurists, all of them Latino men. All deserve to be retained against this pointless campaign.
