Metropolitan News-Enterprise

Dec. 31, 1992

Page 3

Mallano Names 6 Women Judges to Head Superior Court Committees

By SUSAN STANTON, Staff Writer/Trial Courts, State Bar Court

The Los Angeles Superior Court yesterday, in an apparently unprecedented action, publicly released a list of all the members on its committees and their chairpersons for the following year.

The list shows that six women judges have been named by incoming Superior Court Presiding Judge Robert Mallano as committee heads for 1993.

Mallano also named two black judges and three Hispanic judges as committee chairs.

Mallano's naming of the six women judges--as well as his naming three women judges last month to supervising judge posts--marks a sharp reversal from the policy of outgoing Presiding Judge Ricardo Torres, who appointed no women to either position for this year.

Torres was quoted in the June issue of "California Lawyer" magazine as stating that he hadn't appointed women as supervising judges or committee heads because he didn't want to "take chances" on women. He was quoted as stating in explanation:

"When you sit here and run the court, you know what you have in every district and you know what you need. You've got to put in the person who's going to be respected by the judges and not give you problems. I'm not saying that women can't be respected, but most of our women are newer on the bench.'''

A Sept. 7, Daily News article reported that Torres said some women judges didn't want leadership posts, but that he was grooming others for such positions.

Twenty-two of the female judicial officers currently serving on the Superior Court have been on the court for five years or more, and 11 of them have served on the court for over a decade.

Before Torres' term of office, it was is far from unknown for women to serve in top court posts; most recently, Martha Goldin had served as supervising judge of the Probate Department, and Kathryn Doi Todd was presiding judge of the Juvenile Court. Other women have served in past years as committee chairs and co-chairs.

In September, Torres was privately disciplined by the Commission on Judicial Performance on the ground of gender bias.

Earlier this year, Mallano reportedly sought input from other judges--including Superior Court Judge Judith Chirlin, who co-chaired the state Judicial Council's Special Committee on Gender Bias from 1987 to 1990--for a list of possible women appointees to key court posts.

Mallano declined to publicly criticize Torres' failure to appoint women to those positions, saying only that he would let his own appointments "speak for themselves."

The incoming presiding judge was not available yesterday for comment.

Women judges named as committee heads were: Sara Radin, Bench and Bar Committee; Lorna Parnell, Courthouse Committee; Diane Wayne, Media Committee; Judith Chirlin, Judicial Orientation and Continuing Education/Civil Committee; Florence-Marie Cooper, co-chair with Lance Ito of the Judicial Orientation and Continuing Education/Criminal Committee; and Candace Cooper, Ad Hoc Committee on AIDS Policy.

Mallano in November named Judith Ashmann, Emily Stevens, and Romona Godoy Perez as supervising judges. But Perez will probably leave the court next month if, as is expected, she is confirmed to a seat on this district's Court of Appeal by the Commission on Judicial Appointments. Chirlin yesterday said Mallano's appointments "certainly show the bona fideness of Judge Mallano's commitment to put women in leadership
positions on the court."

The blacks named to head committees were Cooper, as well as Marcus Tucker, who will chair the Juvenile Courts Committee. No black this year  headed a committee under Torres' administration, although Torres did appoint one black--Tucker--as a supervising judge; he headed the Dependency Court.

Hispanic judges heading committees are Victor Chavez, Dinner Dance Committee; Aurelio Munoz, CALJIC Committee; and Arthur Baldonado, BAJI Committee.

The normal procedure for committee appointments is that a sign-up sheet is circulated to the judges before a new presiding judge takes office, with  judges signing up for committees on which they want to serve. Incoming presiding judges usually takes the judges' requests into account when  making the assignments, although they can also ask judges to volunteer to head committees.