Family Law Judges Are Judges

Friday, April 25, 2008

Page 7

LETTER TO THE EDITOR:

Family Law Judges Are Judges

Dear Editor:

I must respond to two portions of your article on the election to fill Judicial Office #69 on the Los Angeles Superior Court. (April 15, 2008)

First, I was Commr. [Harvey A.] Silberman’s Supervising Judge when he was tentatively selected as an alternate juror on a case scheduled to last four months. From my discussions with Commr. Silberman I believe he had no personal aversion to jury service. Had he been selected Commr. Silberman would have come to the same courthouse where he normally worked, started his day at a later hour and finished earlier, spent his day hearing testimony as he normally would and received his full pay during his time of service. He would not have had the burden of administrating a calendar nor (if he remained an alternate) the responsibility to decide a case .

Thus, it can hardly be said that serving on the jury was inconvenient for him. Instead it would have placed a burden on the thousands of litigants and hundreds of attorneys who were scheduled to appear in his department in that four month period. The overall hardship to the court system, the separating families and the thousands of children who were involved in the potentially affected cases seemed to me to constitute an adequate basis for a hardship excuse from that particular panel. I did not contact the trial judge with my opinion but I suspect he may have come to the same conclusion. I think it is unfair to criticize Commr. Silberman for the choice made by the trial judge.

Second, to suggest that a judicial officer sitting in a Family Law court is not doing “the” judicial job shows a skewed and narrow view of our court system. By far the majority of cases heard by our court do not involve juries. Family law produces the second highest number of filings for our court (traffic is first). And while I’m sure the administrative issues in dealing with juries are challenging, the family law judicial officer must make ten to thirty substantive decisions every day along with the administrative responsibility of managing a calendar of typically 20 to 25 cases each day. I believe there are at least 47 judicial officers, the current number assigned to the family law department, and probably 50 more alumni of our department who would challenge the contention that we do not do “the job” of a trial judge.

Please note that I write this as an individual and use my court stationary only as the issue raised affects the administration of justice. I’ve used no court resources (other than my computer on non court time). While I do support Commr. Silberman’s candidacy, my purpose in writing this letter is merely to provide balance to comments I believe mischaracterized the circumstances on the jury service issue and to the other comment that denigrated the judicial service I have been providing for this court for over 26 years.

ROBERT SCHNIDER

EDITOR’S RESPONSE: the letter fails to make clear that the criticisms Schnider recites were not made by the MetNews. They were made by others and were reported by the MetNews, in an article by staff writer Sherri Okamoto. The article was, in our view, fair and responsible.

The article included a recitation of an allegation by Shirley Deutsch, an attorney in a case in which Silberman had been chosen as an alternate juror, that the commissioner was anxious be relieved of service, and presented a doctor’s excuse toward that end. Another lawyer in the case corroborated this. Deutsch recalled that the excuse said Silberman had difficulty staying awake. The judge who was presiding, Gregory Alarcon, rejected that excuse, but later did dismiss Silberman without explanation. Silberman confirmed that he was at the time taking a prescription medicine for migraine headaches and that the pills caused fatigue, but said he no longer suffers that malady. He said that he believes “there was much going on behind the scenes,” that “pressure” may have been exerted to get Alarcon to release him, but that he “was not privy to what was done.” There was no lack of balance in the reporting.

The absence of a sense of accountability on the part of Alarcon, who refused to be interviewed, is lamentable. If Schnider thinks there might be lingering doubts about Silberman’s conduct and that revelation of what did actually occur behind the scenes would inure to the commissioner’s benefit, his communication should be to Alarcon, urging his colleague to come out of hiding and speak up. (Of course, we don’t know whether the whole truth would help or hurt Silberman.)

Silberman’s opponent, Deputy District Attorney Serena R. Murillo, was quoted by Okamoto as saying that Silberman is “doing a job, but he’s not doing the job” of a trial judge. If that much and nothing more had been quoted, Okamoto’s profile would be subject to criticism. However, Murillo was then quoted as explaining what she meant: “The job is doing jury trials, taking guilty pleas, and making decisions as to when murderers will be released to the street.…He’s not doing that. He doesn’t have any jury trial experience that I know of.”

Obviously, Murillo was engaging in hyperbole. Her effort was aimed at counteracting an advantage Silberman has of possessing judicial experience, which she lacks. Her approach was to trumpet that she’s had experience, although as a prosecutor, in murder cases, in jury trials, and in sentencing decisions—and he hasn’t. The narrow nature of what she was communicating should be clear to any objective reader of the quotes (and we hope that would include Silberman). Indeed, no reasonable person could possibly infer that she broadly “denigrated the judicial service” performed by Schnider and other judges of the Los Angeles Superior Court who handle family law matters, or had any intention of relegating those jurists to a category of something other than real judges.

Okamoto did not seek comments countering an interpretation of Murillo’s remark that could not have been anticipated, an interpretation that would, on its face, be ludicrous.