John T. Doyle
Los Angeles Superior Court Judge

Doyle, a Superior Court judge since 2000, entered a not guilty plea Sept. 10 to drunk driving charges. Officials said he was arrested about 11:15 p.m. July 2 after officers with the LAPD's South Traffic Division pulled him over in the 4500 block of Don Felipe Drive following a minor traffic collision.
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Harvey Silberman
Los Angeles Superior Court Judge

Orange Superior Court Judge Richard M. King, who is hearing charges of solicitation to commit bribery and solicitation to induce a candidate not to run for public office against Silberman and two political consultants, has scheduled a hearing for Friday on motions to dismiss the charges under Penal Code Sec. 995.

Silberman, a former commissioner who was elected last year as a judge, pled not guilty July 23. The charges stem from last year's contest in which Silberman defeated Deputy District Attorney Serena Murillo for an open seat on the court.

Lori-Ann Jones
Los Angeles Superior Court Commissioner

Jones, a court commissioner since March 2006, was placed on paid administrative leave Sept. 18 following the release of grand jury transcripts in which she testified to having conveyed to then-judicial candidate Serena Murillo a suggestion that funds would be available to pay Murillo's filing fee in the event she were willing to seek election to a judicial office other than that sought by then-Commis­sioner Harvey Silberman. Jones said she made the call as an accommodation to Evelyn Jerome Alexander, a campaign consultant who was representing Silberman at the time and who later represented Jones.

Mervyn H. Wolf
Encino Attorney

Wolf, a lawyer for 40 years, is scheduled for jury trial on five felony embezzlement counts Jan. 27 before Los Angeles Superior Court Judge Bob Bowers Jr. The trial was continued from Nov. 10.

Wolf is accused of having taken settlement funds from his clients in multiple personal injury, workers' compensation, and wrongful termination cases between June 2003 and June 2004. He allegedly deposited settlement checks into his clients' trust accounts, then embezzled the funds.

Wolf was placed on involuntary inactive status by the State Bar Court on July 10, 2006 and faces 23 disciplinary charges, including failure to deposit funds into a trust account, receiving an illegal fee, charging an unconscionable fee, failure to account for client funds, failure to release a client's file, failure to pay client funds promptly, failure to account for client funds, conversion of funds sent to him by mistake, and multiple counts of failure to maintain funds in a trust account, misappropriation of client funds, and failure to cooperate in State Bar investigations.

He has had extensive contacts with the disciplinary system, having been placed on three years' probation in 1995 for misconduct in three matters, suspended 45 days in 1998 for failing to comply with a condition of the earlier probation, placed on inactive status for a month in 2002 for failure to comply with MCLE requirements, and served a month on suspension in 2004 for nonpayment of bar dues..

Richard I. Fine
Disbarred Attorney

The U.S. Supreme Court on Oct. 5 denied Fine's petition for a writ of certiorari seeking review of his disbarment by the state Supreme Court.

Fine, a lawyer for 35 years, asked the nation's highest court to overturn the lifting of his license as a violation of his rights to free speech and due process. The state high court declined to review a State Bar Court ruling that Fine engaged in moral turpitude by continuously relitigating issues on which he had been ruled against.

State Bar Court Hearing Judge Richard Honn found in November 2007 that the lawyer engaged in a concerted campaign of litigation designed to harass judicial officers who had found against him, in particular Los Angeles Superior Court Commissioner Bruce Mitchell.

Fine has been confined to the Twin Towers jail since being held in contempt March 4 by Los Angeles Superior Court Judge David Yaffe. His federal habeas corpus petition challenging that confinement was denied by U.S. District Judge John Walter of the Central District of California on June 29.

The Ninth U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals granted Fine a certificate of appealability, allowing him to challenge the denial of that petition, but on Sept. 15 denied his second motion for immediate release and said it would entertain no further such motions.

Yaffe ordered Fine jailed for as long as he refuses to respond to questions asked at a judgment debtor examination, and jailed for five days for holding himself out as entitled to practice law after being placed on involuntary inactive status by the State Bar Court.

Fine contends that he was denied due process and a jury trial when he was jailed. He also claims to be the victim of a vendetta by Los Angeles Superior Court judicial officers based on his litigation of suits in which he challenged Los Angeles County's payment of benefits to Superior Court judges.
Those benefits were declared unconstitutional-as not being authorized by the Legislature-by the Fourth District Court of Appeal last year in a suit brought by the advocacy group Judicial Watch, but the governor in February signed into law a bill that allows counties to continue paying benefits to supplement the salaries of Superior Court judges and immunizing officials against any liability for having unlawfully paid such benefits in the past. A visiting judge, assigned to the Los Angeles Super­ior Court, upheld the new law in August.

Roosevelt Dorn
Former Los Angeles Superior Court Judge

A pretrial conference is scheduled for Dec. 15 in the case of Dorn, who served on the Inglewood Municipal Court and the Los Angeles Superior Court from 1979 until his election as mayor of Inglewood in 1997. The matter was continued from Nov. 3.

Dorn pled not guilty on July 24 of last year to charges of conflict of interest and misappropriation of public funds. He is alleged to have personally benefited from a loan program designed to assist city employees in purchasing and improving housing within the city.

Mitchell Roth
Former Superior Court Candidate

Roth, a candidate for the Los Angeles Superior Court in 2004, has filed for personal bankruptcy, stalling a lawsuit filed by Attorney General Jerry Brown on July 6. The attorney general charged Roth and foreclosure consultant Paul Noe Jr. with having defrauded some 2,000 desperate homeowners into paying exorbitant fees for "phony lawsuits" to forestall foreclosure proceedings.

Noe did not answer the complaint, and a spokesman for Brown said a default judgment was being sought.
The complaint alleges that the suits were filed and abandoned, even though homeowners were charged $1,800 in upfront fees, at least $1,200 per month, and contingency fees of up to 80 percent of a home's value.

The Los Angeles Superior Court assumed jurisdiction over Roth's law practice in February, allowing the State Bar to take control of his Sherman Oaks, San Diego and Riverside law offices. The State Bar said Roth had been hospitalized due to severe depression, leaving several clients in foreclosure defense litigation cases subject to losing their homes and facing eviction.

Roth did not contest the takeover of his practice or the State Bar's subsequent motion to place him on involuntary inactive status, which was granted by State Bar Court Judge Richard Honn on April 23. Roth tendered his resignation from the State Bar on May 29 rather than face disciplinary charges.

LaJetta Y. Wright
Long Beach Attorney

Wright, a former treasurer of the Black Women Lawyers Association of Los Angeles, faces possible disbarment after pleading guilty July 29 to charges she embezzled $26,000 from the group in 2004. Wright, who repaid the money some time ago, is expected to be placed on probation for one year, with no jail time, at her sentencing Wednesday.