The 10 races for Los Angeles Superior Court judge produced five winners in the March primary and five races in which no candidate won an outright majority. In the Nov. 5 runoff, The Times recommends:
Office #39: Steve Napolitano
Steve Napolitano stands out from most judicial candidates for the diversity of his experience. He represents prisoners at their parole hearings, meaning he is, in a sense, a public defender for Californians serving their sentences. He is also an administrative law judge, hearing civil cases alleging violations of city or county codes. He had his own law firm that handled contract matters.
All of this adds up to a long career in government, which included serving on the Manhattan Beach City Council, where he led the city’s efforts to atone for its role in closing Bruce’s Beach to black property owners many decades earlier. He was chief of staff to Los Angeles County Supervisor Don Knabe, while also running a private law practice (with county permission).
Varied backgrounds like Napolitano’s are valuable assets. Lawyers who spend their entire careers as prosecutors or criminal defense attorneys are often very good at what they do, but they don’t always make the best judges. Having seen the justice system from a single perspective, they may have trouble making the transition to the bench, where a broader, more balanced perspective is needed.
George A. Turner Jr. is an experienced and highly respected deputy public defender who would likely make a competent judge. But, like most judicial candidates, he is a lawyer who is primarily devoted to a single role. Voters can do no wrong in this race, but their best choice for this Superior Court seat is Napolitano.
Office No. 48: Ericka J. Wiley
Ericka J. Wiley has spent most of her career in criminal defense, but she has varied experiences that give her a broader perspective. Before practicing law, she worked at a maternity home, accompanying teenage mothers to their appearances in dependency and delinquency court. Amid a hiring freeze in Los Angeles County, she took a job as a deputy public defender in largely rural Merced County. Returning to Los Angeles, she defended clients charged with capital and rape cases. Recognized for her expertise, she was promoted to an administrative position, supervising attorneys at the Bellflower Superior Court courthouse. But she preferred trials and is now back in the courtroom. She says she has taken a nontraditional path in life, such as becoming a mother at age 49.
Wiley is one of three candidates endorsed by the Defenders of Justice, a slate led by the social justice organization La Defensa. Critics argue that the slate has a political agenda that conflicts with fact-based and impartial justice. Whether or not that is the case, each of its candidates deserves to be evaluated based on her ability, experience and integrity. It is a test that Wiley easily passes; she is an outstanding candidate and, if elected, will likely be an excellent judge.
Her opponent, Renee Rose, has also practiced law in two counties (Riverside and Los Angeles), albeit as a prosecutor. She is also qualified to be a judge, but voters can only elect one. Wiley is the better choice.
Office No. 97: Sharon Ransom
Sharon Ransom brings exactly the qualities voters should look for in judges: She has extensive personal and professional experience, and she combines her legal expertise with a willingness to exercise discretion not only to hold offenders accountable but also to address underlying problems, including addiction, mental illness and poverty.
Ransom worked for 17 years as a dispatcher for the Los Angeles County Sheriff’s Department while raising a child as a single mother. She was nearly 40 when she began a whole new career as a criminal prosecutor. In her 18 years as a deputy district attorney, she has worked on some of the office’s most challenging assignments, including major narcotics and elder abuse cases. She currently works in the mental health unit where defendants deal with psychiatric illness and often homelessness. She has handled dozens of jury trials, displaying what others who work alongside her have described as a calm and professional demeanor.
His opponent, former deputy public defender La Shae Henderson, also advocates for a balanced approach to criminal justice, but Ransom is the most likely to deliver and is the better choice.
Office #135: Steven Yee Mac
Steven Yee Mac is a deputy district attorney, a title that belies his varied and impressive legal experience. After serving as an intelligence officer in the U.S. Army, he joined the Advocate General’s Corps, defending soldiers accused of misconduct and exploring the role of drugs and trauma in their alleged crimes. He also practiced contract law. He interviewed for the Los Angeles County District Attorney’s office over Zoom while deployed in Afghanistan.
As a prosecutor, his work focuses on murders, extortion and other crimes committed in the MacArthur Park area. The victims are mostly immigrant families, like his own.
He is a highly respected trial lawyer with the skill, demeanor and maturity to be an exceptional judge.
Georgia Huerta is also an experienced and highly respected deputy district attorney. This is another one of those races where voters can't get it wrong, but Mac has the advantage of extensive experience.
Office #137: Tracey M. Blount
Tracy M. Blount represents Los Angeles County in dependency court, where judges decide whether children should be removed from their homes due to abuse or neglect. She previously worked as a paralegal and then as an appellate attorney in the San Bernardino County District Attorney's Office.
Blount is highly valued for her skill and calm demeanor. That's particularly important in dependency court, where emotions can run high and the dynamic changes over the course of the proceedings, from quasi-trial (as attorneys present their cases against parents) to collaborative, as the parties try to create a plan to reunite the family and keep the children safe.
His opponent is Luz E. Herrera, whose varied legal career has taken her from a small law firm in Compton to running clinical programs at law schools in Southern California and at Texas A&M. She may well make a good judge, but of the two, Blount is the more qualified.
