Thursday, November 14, 2002
Page 1
Guillermina Byrne, Roger Ito Named Court Commissioners
By KENNETH OFGANG, Staff Writer
Guillermina Gutierrez Byrne and Roger Ito are the newest commissioners of the Los Angeles Superior Court, a court spokeswoman said yesterday.
Byrne and Ito both received a majority of the votes cast in balloting that concluded last Thursday, avoiding a runoff, Pat Kelly said. The two new commissioners fill the seats left vacant by last month’s appointment of Deborah L. Christian as a judge of the court and the retirement of Eugene Siegel.
Byrne and Ito were the highest-ranked candidates on the ballot, based on rankings issued in August of last year by a judicial panel. The rankings are not binding on the court’s judges, who elect the commissioners, but all 19 of the commissioners elected from the list thus far were the highest-ranked at the time they were chosen.
Byrne, who was a juvenile court referee prior to being elected commissioner, was admitted to the State Bar in 1981. She is a graduate of Immaculate Heart College and Loyola Law School.
She formerly heard dependency cases at the Edelman Children’s Court in Monterey Park, but was assigned last month to a delinquency court at the Eastlake courthouse in Los Angeles.
Byrne is married to Los Angeles Superior Court Judge J. Michael Byrne and is a sister of retired Los Angeles Superior Court Judge Gabriel Gutierrez and Ventura Superior Court Judge Arturo Gutierrez.
Ito, a deputy district attorney, graduated from UC San Diego and Loyola Law School and was admitted in 1989. He has not yet received his bench assignment, the court spokesperson said.
There are no commissioner vacancies remaining to be filled. Fourteen candidates remain from the original list of 35, since 19 have been elected, one dropped out for undisclosed reasons, and one was appointed a judge.
The remaining candidates, in ranked order, are Covina lawyer and former Superior Court candidate H. Don Christian; Stuart Rice of Long Beach; Dennis Mulcahy of Woodland Hills; Riverside Superior Court Commissioner Gretchen W. Taylor, Deputy Public Defender Lisa Brackelmanns; Referee Brian Petraborg; former referee and onetime Antelope Municipal Court candidate Joel Wallenstein; Torrance attorney and “as-needed” Referee Steven Lee Berman; Referee Anthony Trendacosta; Downey lawyer Daniel Wilson; Los Angeles attorney Joseph Sheehan; Santa Monica family law specialist Susan Weiss; Beverly Hills attorney Marilyn Nelson; and Santa Monica criminal law specialist Steven Hauser.
Copyright 2002, Metropolitan News Company