Metropolitan News-Enterprise

 

Friday, June 5, 2009

 

Page 1

 

Chief Justice Names Judge Wesley to Judicial Council

 

By a MetNews Staff Writer

 

Chief Justice Ronald M. George yesterday named Los Angeles Superior Court Judge David S. Wesley to a three-year term on the Judicial Council of California, commencing Sept. 15.

Wesley, who could not be reached for comment, will be one of three new judicial members on the state courts’ rule- and policy-making body.  He is being joined by Santa Clara Superior Court Judge Erica R. Yew, a former member of the State Bar Board of Governors, and San Diego Superior Court Presiding Judge Kenneth K. So, who is currently an advisory member of the council.

George also named Contra Costa Superior Court Presiding Judge Mary Ann O’Malley, who is succeeding So as chair of the Trial Court Presiding Judges Advisory Committee, to a one-year term as an advisory member of the council.

Supreme Court Clerk/Administrator Frederick K. “Fritz” Ohlrich and Marin Superior Court Executive Officer Kim Turner were named to three-year terms as advisory members, and San Diego Superior Court Executive Officer Michael M. Roddy was reappointed to a two-year term in that capacity.

Ohlrich has held his present post since 1995. Before that he was assistant administrator, and then administrator, of the Los Angeles Municipal Court from 1983 to 1995.

The members named by George will be joined on the council by juvenile justice advocate and former federal prosecutor Miriam A. Krinsky, who was named to a three-year term as an attorney member by the State Bar Board of Governors.

Wesley has been a Superior Court judge since 1997 and is currently assigned to a complex felony trial court.  His previous judicial assignments include service as supervising judge and assistant supervising judge of the criminal courts.

He also is a member of the court’s executive committee and director of the Los Angeles Teen Court Program. Before he became a judge, he served as a court commissioner from 1995 and as a hearing judge of the State Bar Court from 1993 to 1995.

Prior to that, he was in private practice, prior to which he was a deputy public defender from 1972 to 1981.

Wesley was recently honored by the Judicial Council for his work as a leader of a team of judges that helped the Riverside Superior Court comply with speedy trial deadlines in criminal cases and reduce its enormous backlog of civil cases.

 Krinsky, the former executive director of the Children’s Law Center, which represents children in dependency court, teaches child welfare policy and juvenile law to graduate students at the UCLA School of Public Policy and to law students at Loyola Law School in Los Angeles.

She recently worked with the AOC Center for Families, Children & the Courts as a special consultant on the creation of the statewide Child Welfare Council and also serves on the council’s Blue Ribbon Commission on Children in Foster Care.  She has testified extensively before legislative, governmental, and judicial bodies; authored numerous articles; and lectured nationwide on criminal law, child welfare, and appellate issues.

Prior to joining Children’s Law Center, then known as Dependency Court Legal Services, in 2002, she was head of the Criminal Appellate Section of the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the Central District of California.

She spent 15 years with the U.S. Attorney’s Office, prior to which was a civil litigator with the now-defunct law firm Hufstedler, Miller, Carlson and Beardsley.

She has also served as president of the Los Angeles City Ethics Commission and the Los Angeles County Bar Association, was the founding chair of LACBA’s Juvenile Courts Task Force, and chaired the U.S. Department of Justice’s Appellate Working Group, the Ninth Circuit’s Advisory Committee on Rules and Practice and the local Bench-Bar Coalition.

 

Copyright 2009, Metropolitan News Company