Metropolitan News-Enterprise

Nov. 16, 1994

Page 1

Parkin Elected Superior Court Assistant Presiding Judge

By DAVID WATSON, Staff Writer/Trial and Appellate Courts

Judge Robert Parkin was elected Los Angeles Superior Court assistant presiding judge yesterday, defeating Judge Joseph Kalin in runoff balloting for the post which by tradition leads to unopposed election to the court's top administrative post.

While official vote totals were not announced, the METNEWS  learned from a reliable source that slightly more than 145 of the 218 judges voting cast their ballots for Parkin, giving him a victory margin of more than 2-1.

Parkin had received 96 votes in the first round of balloting, just nine short of a majority. Kalin drew 37 votes with the remaining three
candidates--Judges David Horowitz, Coleman Swart, and Marvin Rowen--dividing another 75 votes.

Parkin, 62, was the last to enter the five-way race. He became a candidate in May after Judge Arthur Jean dropped out of the contest, throwing his support to Parkin.

Kalin, 59, was the first to become a candidate, announcing his intent to run in July of last year--the earliest start to a campaign for the office that observers could recall.

While letters to colleagues announcing candidacies and soliciting support are a traditional part of campaigns for assistant presiding judge, this contest generated an unusual number of letters as Kalin ran what he described as an "issues campaign." He emphasized his opposition to proposals to unify the state's municipal and superior courts and his reservations about the pace and direction of the court's efforts toward administrative unification under current Presiding Judge Robert Mallano.

At one point Kalin, along with Rowen the only two of the five hopefuls not a member of the court's Executive Committee, called for an
up-or-down vote of the court's 234 judges on unification issues. Either the presiding judge or the Executive Committee could have ordered such a vote, but neither did.

Parkin said yesterday he was "very pleased" by the election results and that he is looking forward to assuming his new duties. He said he expects to meet early next week with Presiding Judge-Elect Gary Klausner to discuss the role of the assistant presiding judge during Klausner's term of office.

Klausner will take over from Mallano on Jan. 2. If tradition is followed, he will serve two one-year terms and Parkin will assume the post in 1997.

Parkin, a 1960 graduate of Pacific Coast University School of Law and a Superior Court judge since 1985, said the campaign's emphasis on issues--and the amount of campaign literature it generated--was unusual.

"I don't ever remember there having been a campaign like that," he observed.

The former Long Beach city attorney, who was named to the bench by Gov. George Deukmejian, noted that previous campaigns have tended to focus on the experience and qualifications of the aspirants, not their positions on issues. While Kalin was raising "important issues," Parkin said, he suggested some judges may have felt the tenor of Kalin's campaign was "inappropriate."

Parkin--who commented during the campaign that Kalin appeared more "confrontational" than himself--said yesterday that he and his opponent differed more over "approach" than on the issues themselves.

He said he believes it is possible to state the court's positions on a "calmer level and more reasoned level than just throwing down a gauntlet with people and challenging them on it."

Kalin said yesterday he thought his election bid helped to define the court's position on issues like unification, court coordination, and 100 percent state funding of trial courts.

"My campaign delineated those issues," he declared.

He agreed that his "aggressive" campaign might have alienated some judges, but added:

"I don't look at myself as being that confrontational."

Parkin, who lives in Long Beach, served in the U.S. Army in Korea and was a Long Beach police officer before becoming an attorney in 1961.

From 1991 to 1993, he served as supervising judge of the court's Norwalk-based Southeast District and he is currently chair of the court's Personnel and Budget Committee.