Metropolitan News-Enterprise

 

Monday, October 15, 2001

 

Page 4

 

Hearing on Moreno’s Nomination to High Court Moved Back a Day

 

By a MetNews, Staff Writer

 

The public hearing on Gov. Gray Davis’ appointment of U.S. District Judge Carlos Moreno of the Central District of California to the state Supreme Court has been moved back a day, the Commission on Judicial Appointments announced Friday.

The hearing will now be held Thursday at 10 a.m. in the California Supreme Court courtroom in San Francisco. Chief Justice Ronald M. George, chair of the commission, will preside over the hearing. The commission gave no reason for the postponement.

Moreno was nominated on Sept. 26 by Davis to fill the state Supreme Court seat left vacant by the death of Justice Stanley Mosk. The governor announced at the time of the selection that Moreno had been rated exceptionally well qualified by the Commission on Judicial Nominees Evaluation.

Moreno, 52, was born in East Los Angeles and graduated from Abraham Lincoln High School, where he was senior class president. He holds degrees from Yale University—where he headed a Mexican American student group prior to graduating in 1970—and Stanford University Law School.

After graduating Stanford in 1975, he became a Los Angeles deputy city attorney, working in the criminal and consumer fraud sections. His boss at the time, then-City Attorney Burt Pines, is now the governor’s top adviser on judicial appointments.

Moreno was a senior associate at a Los Angeles law firm when then-Gov. George Deukmejian appointed him to the Compton Municipal Court in 1986. He was elevated to the Los Angeles Superior Court by then-Gov. Pete Wilson in 1993.

His 1998 appointment to the federal bench by President Clinton was endorsed by a number of elected officials in both parties. His nomination to the high court has been generally praised, but under commission procedures, comments submitted in support or opposition to the nomination will not be disclosed until tomorrow.

 

Copyright 2001, Metropolitan News Company