Monday, January 28, 2002
Page 3
Panel Confirms Seven Court of Appeal Justices in Northern California
By a MetNews Staff Writer
Seven Court of Appeal justices and presiding justices in the Bay Area were confirmed Friday by the Commission on Judicial Appointments.
Justice James Marchiano of the First District’s Div. One was elevated to presiding justice of his division, and Justice Laurence D. Kay of the same district’s Div. Four became presiding justice of his division.
The commission also confirmed Alameda Superior Court Judge Sandra L. Margulies to succeed Marchiano as a First District Div. One associate justice and Contra Costa Superior Court Judge Maria P. Rivera to succeed Kay on Div. Four.
Also confirmed were San Francisco Superior Court Judge Stuart Pollak to the First District’s Div. Three, San Mateo Superior Court Judge Linda M. Gemello to the First District’s Div. Five, and Santa Clara Superior Court Judge Conrad Rushing to the Sixth District Court of Appeal.
The First District is based in San Francisco and handles cases appealed from the superior courts in Alameda, Contra Costa, Del Norte, Humboldt, Lake, Marin, Mendocino, Napa, San Francisco, San Mateo, Solano and Sonoma counties.
The Sixth District is based in San Jose and covers Monterey, San Benito, Santa Clara and Santa Cruz counties.
Gov. Gray Davis appointed Kay to the Court of Appeal a year ago and nominated him as presiding justice late last year to succeed Daniel Hanlon.
Kay had previously been presiding judge and assistant presiding judge of the San Francisco Superior Court and headed its mental health division, appellate department and criminal division. He was appointed by then-Gov. Jerry Brown to the San Francisco Municipal Court in 1981 and to the Superior Court in 1983. He earned his undergraduate and law degrees from UC Berkeley.
Marchiano was appointed to the Court of Appeal by then-Gov. Pete Wilson in 1998 after 10 years as a Contra Costa Superior Court judge. Davis picked him for presiding justice last year.
He is a graduate of St. Patrick’s College and Boalt Hall.
Gemello was elected to the San Mateo Superior Court in 1996. She was named Trial Judge of the Year by the San Mateo County Trial Lawyers Association last year. Previously, she was a high school English teacher and then a civil litigator.
She is a former member of the State Bar Commission on Judicial Nominees Evaluation and a graduate of Santa Clara University.
Margulies was appointed to the San Leandro Municipal Court in 1985 by then-Gov. George Deukmejian, and elevated to the Alameda Superior Court three years later. She was a prosecutor in Alameda County for eight years prior to becoming a judge.
She is a graduate of UCLA and Southwestern University School of Law.
Brown appointed Pollak to the San Francisco Superior Court in 1983. Pollak leaves the post overseeing the court’s complex litigation program.
He is a former presiding judge of the court and has twice sat on long-term assignment on the Court of Appeal.
Pollak is a graduate of Stanford University and Harvard Law School. He clerked for the late U.S. Chief Justice Earl Warren and was a staff attorney for the Warren Commission investigating the assassination of President Kennedy.
He also worked for the Department of Justice and assisted in the jury tampering prosecution that led to the imprisonment of the late Teamsters President James Hoffa.
Later, he became a partner in Howard, Rice, Nemerovski, Canady & Pollak in San Francisco.
Rivera was elected to the Contra Costa Superior Court in 1996 after 15 years as a commercial and land use litigator and appellate lawyer in the Bay Area. She previously served as a San Francisco deputy district attorney and an assistant U.S. attorney in San Francisco.
She is a graduate of Smith College and University of San Francisco Law School.
The First District appointments were confirmed by a panel consisting of Chief Justice Ronald George, Attorney General Bill Lockyer, and the district’s senior presiding justice, J. Anthony Kline of Div. Two.
Copyright 2002, Metropolitan News Company