One Prosecutor, Three Private Practitioners Vie for Seat on Bench

By KIMBERLY EDDS, Staff Writer

Los Angeles Superior Court Judge Michael Kanner decided last October not to run for another term on the court, and candidates wasted little time in declaring their intention to grab Office No. 53.

First came former Superior Court Commissioner Richard Espinoza, followed soon after by Deputy District Attorney Lauren Weis. Mid-Wilshire attorney Robert Harrison then joined the fray and, on the last day to file, West Covina lawyer H. Don Christian threw his hat into the ring.

The four-person competition is one of seven races for Los Angeles Superior Court seats.

Tried Every Field

Christian, 59, says he has tried just about everything in law that could be imagined.

Probate, adoptions, family law, and criminal matters have all made their way across the desk of the attorney in the more than 30 years he’s been practicing.

“You name it, he’s done it,” Los Angeles Superior Court Judge Dan Oki, Christian’s former law partner, says. “He’s a jack of all trades.”

His variety of experience extends outside the courtroom.

Christian began his professional career as a teacher, not a lawyer, teaching at Belmont High School, where he worked while attending California State College at Los Angeles and, later, Loyola Law School.

Just five years after receiving his law degree from Loyola in 1970, Christian began preaching what he learned by teaching at the American College of Law. His class schedule included teaching family law, criminal procedure, and evidence.

And his teaching career continued to expand along with his law practice as he began giving lectures at California State University, Los Angeles and Dominguez Hills on health and safety law, and occupational health, safety law, and environmental law.

But now, Christian says, he feels he is at a good stage in his career to look at law from a different perspective and make the move from his law office to the bench.

The 59-year-old trial lawyer admits that getting the opportunity to make that move isn’t going to be easy, especially since he isn’t willing to spend a lot of money to get his name out there, relying on his reputation and on personal appearances.

“I’m happy to stand on my reputation,” Christian says.

He says he plans to file a short form—which limits his campaign spending to just a $1,000—and see if he can make it through the March primary.

“It’s almost impossible,” Christian admits. “It’s an uphill battle.”

Christian is critical of the amount of fundraising that takes place in judicial elections. As of yet, he has not filed any of the required campaign finance reports.

“The fact that you can raise money in campaigning is one skill, but it may not be a judicial skill,” Christian says.

Christian sought appointment to the Citrus Municipal Court during Gov. Pete Wilson’s term and he says he went through the Judicial Nominees Evaluation Commission and met with Wilson’s appointment secretary, John Davies, right before Wilson left office.

Oki, who heads the court’s criminal court operations, calls Christian an “outstanding attorney” and says he encouraged him to apply to be put on the commissioner’s list.

Christian was recently rated “well qualified” by the Los Angeles County Bar Association, the organization’s highest rating. He is just one of two candidates in the race to fill Kanner’s seat to receive that rating. Deputy District Attorney Lauren Weis is the other.

Oki acknowledges that going up against Weis, and her criminal prosecutor ballot designation, is going to be a tough combination for Christian to beat.

“I think he’s got an uphill battle,” Oki says.

But he also says that Christian’s broad legal experience, which spans the civil and criminal gamut, would be a benefit to the bench—and an edge which many lawyers don’t have.

“I’ve always been an early starter and I go as long as it takes,” Christian says.

And if taking the election to fill Kanner’s seat doesn’t work out, Christian says, he’s currently in the top 20 on the approved commissioner’s list and getting a spot on the bench through that list would be just fine.

Superior Court Experience

Espinoza, 59, has an advantage over his opponents that cannot be learned in the day-to-day practice of law.

He has experience—on the Superior Court bench.

Espinoza is the only candidate in the four-person race for retiring Kanner’s seat who has ever donned a judicial robe.

He ran unsuccessfully for the Citrus Municipal Court seat won by Judge Tom Falls in 1996, then filed to run for Rio Hondo Municipal Court Judge Rudy Diaz’s seat on last year’s ballot.

Espinoza was named commissioner of the Rio Hondo Municipal Court shortly after he dropped his challenge to Diaz, citing financial concerns, and took the bench in the midst of court unification.

He denies the commissioner position was a payoff for dropping his challenge against Diaz.

Espinoza’s time on the bench lasted just six months, from January to June 2000, but it was a rocky time for the new commissioner, who was thrust, without much instruction, into a full calendar previously handled by Judge Francis Gately.

He was appointed to fill in for Gately while Gately chaired the Presiding Judges Association. But just two weeks into his term, county judges approved court unification and the Presiding Judges Association was no more.

In his first case as a commissioner, Espinoza says, he went against the prosecutor’s recommendation for jail time for a convicted drunk driver, instead giving him a standard first time offender’s sentence. He says that decision got him started off on the wrong foot with the deputy district attorneys.

“That set the mood for the D.A.s and they started ganging up on me,” Espinoza says.

The deputies would not stipulate to him, complaining that Espinoza was slow and could not control his calendar, the former commissioner says.

Espinoza admits that he did allow a lot of continuances, but says he was never mentored by another judicial officer and was never told not to grant continuances. To combat his lack of experience, Espinoza says he used to spend countless hours at the courthouse before and after regular hours and even on the weekends, learning as he went.

The learning process came to a halt when Espinoza received what he calls “a terse e-mail” from then-Presiding Judge Victor Chavez inviting him to discuss his performance as a commissioner.

When Espinoza arrived for the meeting, Chavez was joined by then-Assistant Presiding Judge James Bascue, Executive Officer/Clerk John Clarke, and Judge Dan Oki—and instead of discussing his performance, they asked him to resign.

Espinoza refused to resign, saying that he understood that his position was temporary, and that they would have to fire him.

After failing to persuade him to resign, Espinoza says Clarke suggested sweetening the deal by agreeing to pay the commissioner for the rest of the year, the maximum time the position was supposed to last, if he would resign.

Espinoza agreed and a few weeks later he received a check for $59,633.99—something he says he doesn’t believe he was really entitled to.

Chavez says the money was to allow Espinoza time to adjust from being a commissioner to returning to private practice.

After resigning, Espinoza did return to his Baldwin Park law practice, but still had his eye on a spot on the bench.

If he gets elected, Espinoza says, this time will be different.

“It will be a whole new ballgame, new D.A.s and new everything,” Espinoza says.

Espinoza isn’t planning on spending a lot of money in the March election, in the hope that if he does make it past the primary without an outright winner being declared, he can spend between $35,000 and $40,000 in the general election. But even that might not be enough to do the trick, he acknowledges.

“That’s a very, very small amount of money given the size of the area,” Espinoza says.

“Hope and a prayer,” Espinoza says. “That’s what I’ve got.”

The Los Angeles County Bar rated Espinoza “qualified” rather than “well qualified,” but he says he has no plans to appeal based on what he calls his 10 Congressional Medals of Honor theory.

“If I had 10 Congressional Medals of Honor, I could be elected president of the United States just by waving if everyone knew about them,” Espinoza says. “But if no one knows about them I would find it very hard getting directions to City Hall to get an application to be a dog catcher.”

New Life Sought

It was a series of events, not a lifelong mission, that Mid-Wilshire civil attorney Robert Harrison, 44, says prompted him to run for judge of the Los Angeles Superior Court.

After his father died last year and Harrison lost several friends to cancer, he began contemplating ways to change his life and increase his involvement in the community, something he says is very important to him.

When he witnessed the events of Sept. 11 unfold, the business lawyer says he became even more determined to do something beneficial to the community. He went down to the county registrar-recorder’s office and filed papers to run for a seat on the Los Angeles Superior Court.

It seemed like a natural jump for Harrison, who is no stranger to community involvement or examining the facts and handing down a decision.

As a hearing officer for the Los Angeles Police Department’s disciplinary board, Harrison, along with two police command officers, reviews incidents of police misconduct and doles out discipline.

Cmdr. Dan Koenig, who has sat on numerous LAPD disciplinary panels with Harrison, says the process is very similar to presiding over a courtroom.

Hearing officers decide guilt or innocence after listening to testimony, asking questions, and examining evidence, Koenig says. If the panel decides the officer is guilty, the hearing officers go into closed session to decide on a penalty.

Harrison is one of about 50 persons who make up the civilian pool from which one member for each Board of Rights panel is selected.

Since he was selected by the Police Commission as a hearing officer in 1994, Harrison has heard nearly 30 Board of Rights cases, which can last nearly two weeks each.

“You have to look someone in the face and say these are the facts and here’s your discipline because we can’t trust you to be a good officer,” Harrison says.

Koenig remarks he was impressed with Harrison’s knowledge of the law and his fairness.

“I always found him to be thoughtful, intelligent and insightful,” Koenig says.

In addition to his work with the LAPD, Harrison is also an adjunct professor for the UCLA Attorney Assistant Program and he does pro bono work for a Los Angeles County Bar Association program that provides legal assistance for low-income people living with HIV/AIDS.

Harrison is the brother of Calabasas City Councilman Michael Harrison. The two are partners in the law firm of Harrison & Harrison.

He says he refuses to get into the politics of the race.

“You have to win on your own merits,” Harrison says. “I certainly wouldn’t want to spread dirt about someone.”

Harrison says that if he does not win the election, in which he has already invested $16,000 of his own money, he will seek a judicial seat through appointment or by running again. He predicts that he will spend about $20,000 in the race, and he almost met that mark with his personal loan and nearly $1,000 in contributions.

But he says that the amount of money spent in the race may not be a major factor.

“There is no magic formula in judicial campaigns,” Harrison observes.

He does admit that Deputy District Attorney Lauren Weis might have a leg up with her “criminal prosecutor” ballot designation and her association with the District Attorney’s Office.

“People like the D.A.’s Office,” Harrison says.

He is also the only openly gay candidate in the race but he says he does not believe that will make a huge impact in the election.

“I don’t know if its going to be much of an issue,” Harrison, former president of the Lesbian and Gay Law Union at Loyola Law School, says. “The public in Los Angeles is so different from the rest of the country.”

The Los Angeles County Bar recently rated Harrison “qualified,” citing his lack of trial experience as the reason for not giving him a “well qualified” rating. He did not appeal.

He has conducted just 20 trials over his career, saying his practice focuses more on litigation.

“As a business lawyer I try not to go to trial,” Harrison says. “That’s my aim.”

Harrison focuses his practice on civil litigation, advising clients on corporate, tax, employment, and estate planning issues.

Unusual Christmas Card

Weis, 51, has a 13-year-old Christmas card she just can’t seem to part with.

The message inside the card is simple and to the point:

“Miss Weis, A fair Deputy District Attorney, may this card find you in the best of spirits, and I’m hoping you have a very Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year.”

But the unlikely sender, Manuel Mendoza, and the sentiment he expressed are the reasons Weis hangs on to the card and now points to it as a source of pride.

Weis prosecuted Mendoza in 1988 for the murder and rape of a 65-year-old grandmother whom he burned alive. He was convicted and sentenced to death. The California Supreme Court recently affirmed the sentence.

“I think I got that Christmas card because the defendant thought I acted fairly,” Weis says.

Weis says she hopes to treat defendants fairly from a different perspective in the courtroom as she makes her bid for the Los Angeles Superior Court seat being vacated by Kanner. She’s banking on her reputation as a tough but fair prosecutor to do it.

The 23-year criminal law veteran has spent almost her entire legal career with the Los Angeles District Attorney’s Office, where she once headed the office’s sex crimes and child abuse unit.

The courtroom is not always the friendliest of places when having to describe gruesome details about a teenager who was found naked, beaten and shot to death by a private security guard who had attempted to rape her or the mutilation of a developmentally disabled woman who had been brutally sexually assaulted, but Weis says she loves it.

Weis continued to try cases even after she became head deputy of the sex crimes unit in 1993. She tried her last case in 1996.

While her area of expertise may not be the stuff of polite dinner conversation, Weis, a self-described advocate of victims’ rights, says she feels good about herself being involved in the process that sometimes requires a strong stomach and lots of patience.

“It takes a little more than regular lawyering,” Weis says. “You’re half social worker, half lawyer.”

U.S. District Judge Florence-Marie Cooper of the Central District of California, who presided over the Mendoza case as a Superior Court judge, says Weiss has that combination down pat.

“I was tremendously impressed with her,” Cooper says.

Weis was sensitive to the needs of the victim’s family throughout the trial, without wavering in pursuing her case, despite how painful it was for her to seek the death penalty, Cooper says.

“The facts were awful, the defendant was difficult and there were a lot of family members [of the victim] in court every day,” Cooper said. “She was thorough, conscientious, but she pursued her case.”

A staunch supporter of former District Attorney Gil Garcetti, Weis said she admires his commitment to prosecuting domestic violence, including his creating the first domestic violence unit in the District Attorney’s Office.

“I really believed in those kinds of things,” Weis says.

Garcetti and his son, City Councilman Eric Garcetti, are both endorsing Weis.

She continues to be critical of current District Attorney Steve Cooley, saying that his reorganization of the office consists mainly of renaming programs that already existed.

And she says she believes her transfer from head deputy of the Santa Monica/Airport branch, where she helped open the new courthouse, to the Workers’ Compensation Fraud unit shortly after Cooley took office last January was punitive.

“I was very loyal to Gil and I didn’t jump ship like a lot of deputy D.A.s did,” Weis says.

But Weis says she is not inclined to challenge Cooley for the county’s top prosecutor spot.

“It’s a tough job,” Weis says. “You’re responsible for so many things that are really not under your control.”

After serving as head deputy of the Workers’ Compensation unit for eight months, Weis was transferred to head deputy of Central Trials.

“There comes a time when you don’t want to be an advocate anymore,” Weis says. “I’m ready to move on. I look to the challenge of being a judge.”

Weis says she thinks she has a shot at getting that opportunity, something she says she’s wanted from day one, with a solid background, a ballot designation of “criminal prosecutor” and Hermosa Beach political consultant Fred Huebscher in her corner. And she’s the only woman in the four-person race to fill the seat being vacated by Kanner.

Weis says she and her husband plan to raise a minimum of $40,000 for the campaign, which could last until November if the large field of candidates results in a runoff instead of an outright winner in the March primary.

She was recently evaluated as “well qualified” by the Los Angeles County Bar Association, the highest of the organization’s three ratings, after she successfully appealed a lower “qualified” rating.

She says she hopes to find voter support in women’s groups and women lawyers and expects that a large part of her campaign money will come from fund-raisers.

Weis, who has never had a conviction reversed, has the backing of former state Attorney General John Van de Kamp, the Los Angeles County Democratic Party and numerous law enforcement officers associations, including the Los Angeles Police Protective League.

H. DON CHRISTIAN	RICHARD ESPINOSA
ROBERT HARRISON	LAUREN WEIS