Los Angeles Superior Court Prepares for Executive Committee Elections

Wednesday, November 21, 2001

Page 3

Los Angeles Superior Court Prepares for Executive Committee Elections

By ROBERT GREENE, Staff Writer

Nominations are due by noon today for candidates for the Los Angeles Superior Court’s 2002 Executive Committee, the court’s policymaking body.

Court officials will draw up ballots with nominees for 18 slots on the panel and send them to each of the court’s judges Nov. 28. Voting takes place over a week among the court’s 429 judges, with ballots due back for counting Dec. 5.

Ballots are also to be counted for two commissioner representatives on Dec. 5. One commissioner is to be elected at large by those who served as Superior Court commissioners immediately prior to court unification last year, and one by those who were municipal court commissioners just prior to unification.

The Superior Court has a total of 142 commissioners.

The Executive Committee consists of 28 members. Presiding Judge James Bascue and Assistant Presiding Judge Robert Dukes serve as chair and vice chair, respectively, and Civil Supervising Judge R. Gary Klausner, Criminal Supervising Judge Dan Oki, Juvenile Court Presiding Judge Terry Friedman and the chair of the court’s budget committee serve as ex officio members.

The elected members are the two commissioner representatives, and 18 judges—seven elected from the court’s Central District and one from each of the 11 outlying geographic districts.

Friedman was reassigned effective Jan. 2 to the West District in Santa Monica and will be replaced as presiding judge of the Juvenile Court, and on the Executive Committee, by Michael Nash. Succeeding Nash as Dependency Court supervising judge will be Emily A. Stevens.

The new committee takes office Jan. 2. Bascue on that same day will begin the second year of his two-year term as presiding judge of the unified Superior Court, the largest trial court in the nation.

Appointments are expected from Bascue in the coming weeks to the court’s several committees, along with assignments to the nearly 50 courthouses around the county.

Bascue already has assigned supervising judges, assistant supervising judges and “site judges,” or judges who are responsible for courthouses where supervising judges do not sit.

Supervising, Assistant Supervising Judge Assignments, 2002

Department or District	Supervising Judge	Assistant Supv. Judge
Juvenile Court	Michael Nash (Presiding Judge)
Dependency		Emily A. Stevens
Central Civil	R. Gary Klausner	S. James Otero
Mental Health		Fred J. Fujioka
Probate		Thomas W. Stoever
Writs & Receivers		David Yaffe
Complex Litigation		Carolyn Kuhl
Family Law		Aviva Bobb
Criminal	Dan T. Oki
Felony		David Wesley
Misdemeanor		Carol Rehm Jr.
East District	Robert M. Martinez	George Genesta
North District	Steven D. Ogden	Frank Y. Jackson
North Central District Northeast District	Mary Thornton House	Teri Schwartz
North Valley District	William A. MacLaughlin	Alice C. Hill
Northwest District	Paul Gutman	Darlene E. Schempp
South District	Gary J. Ferrari	Bradford L. Andrews
South Central District	John Cheroske	Jack W. Morgan
Southeast District	Chris Conway	Peter Espinoza
Southwest District	Andrew Kauffman	Eric Taylor
West District	Alan Haber	John H. Reid

Site Judge Assignments, 2002

Courthouse	Site Judge
Alhambra	Candace J. Beason
Airport	James Brandlin
Beverly Hills	Lisa Hart Cole
Central Civil West	Carolyn Kuhl
Citrus	Thomas Falls
Culver City	Allan J. Goodman
Downey	David W. Perkins
East Los Angeles	Richard E. Rico
Hollywood	Melvin D. Sandvig
Inglewood	Eric Taylor
Los Cerritos	Leland H. Tipton
Malibu	Lawrence J. Mira
Metropolitan	Sam Ohta
Newhall	Cynthia Ulfig
Palmdale	Frank Y. Jackson
Pomona North	Thomas A. Peterson
Rio Hondo	Abraham Khan
San Pedro	Thomas R. Simpson
Santa Anita	Patrick Hegarty
South Gate, Huntington Park	Daniel Ramirez
West Los Angeles	Rosemary Shumsky
Whittier	Yvonne T. Sanchez