Thursday, February 24, 2005
Page 3
Governor Names Los Angeles Jurist to Alameda Superior Court
By a MetNews Staff Writer
Los Angeles Superior Court Judge Ronni B. MacLaren was named to the Alameda Superior Court yesterday by Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger.
MacLaren, 49, was appointed to the Los Angeles Municipal Court by then-Gov. Pete Wilson in 1997 and elevated to the Superior Court through unification in 2000.
MacLaren, who has been sitting on assignment in Northern California since last year, could not be reached for comment on the appointment. Sources said the jurist, who now lives in Mill Valley in Marin County, relocated in connection with her husband’s employment.
Her former courtroom in the Foltz Criminal Justice Center has been occupied by a retired judge sitting on assignment.
MacLaren graduated from the University of Virginia School of Law in 1980 and joined the now-defunct Los Angeles law firm of Adams, Duque & Hazeltine. She left in 1985 to become an assistant U.S. attorney for the Central District of California, a position she continued to hold until her appointment to the bench.
Her undergraduate degree is from Smith College.
MacLaren serves as vice chair of the Ethics Committee of the California Judges Association. She is registered as decline-to-state.
Schwarzenegger yesterday appointed three other judges to Bay Area Courts.
Michael J. Gaffey, 48, was appointed to the Alameda Superior Court. A veteran prosecutor of gang-related crimes, Gaffey has been a Santa Clara deputy district attorney since 1994 and was a deputy district attorney in Alameda County for 10 years before that.
He is a graduate of Loyola Marymount University and Hastings College of the Law. Gaffey is a Republican.
Curtis E. A. Karnow and Marla J. Miller were appointed to the San Francisco Superior Court.
Karnow, 51, has 27 years of legal experience, most recently serving as an attorney with Sonnenschein Nath & Rosenthal. He began his career as an assistant United States attorney in Philadelphia in 1978, and later served as a law clerk for a United States District Court Judge in the same city.
He is a graduate of Harvard University and the University of Pennsylvania School of Law. Karnow is a Democrat.
Miller, 50, has practiced law in San Francisco for nearly 25 years, most recently serving as a partner at Morrison & Foerster, LLP, where she specialized in complex civil litigation, including intellectual property. She is also a former assistant U.S.attorney in San Francisco and chaired Howard, Rice, Nemerovski, Canady, Falk, & Rabkin’s litigation department.
She served briefly as San Francisco’s chief assistant district attorney in 1996. Miller is a Democrat.
Copyright 2005, Metropolitan News Company