Friday, October 22, 2010
Page 3
CJP Admonishes Los Angeles Superior Court Judge Convicted After Drunk Driving Arrest
By a MetNews Staff Writer
Los Angeles Superior Court Judge John T. Doyle was publicly admonished by the Commission on Judicial Performance yesterday for driving with an excessive blood alcohol level.
The CJP voted unanimously in favor of the admonishment, which Doyle did not contest.
Doyle, now 57, was charged with misdemeanor drunk driving following what a police detective described as a “minor sideswipe” with another vehicle in the vicinity of Don Felipe Drive in Los Angeles. Breath tests gave blood alcohol readings of .20 and .21, and Doyle pled no contest to driving with a blood alcohol level in excess of .08 percent, and was placed on probation, last October.
“Judge Doyle’s unlawful action...evidences a serious disregard of the principles of personal and official conduct embodied in the California Code of Judicial Ethics, including failure to observe high standards of conduct so that the integrity and independence of the judiciary will be preserved (canon 1) and failure to respect and comply with the law and act at all times in a manner that promotes public confidence in the integrity of the judiciary (canon 2A),” the commission said in its decision.
The commission further found that the judge’s conduct was “prejudicial to the administration of justice and brought the judicial office into disrepute.”
Doyle hears criminal cases in Compton. A former deputy public defender, he was named a judge by then-Gov. Gray Davis in 2001, a year after he became a Superior Court commissioner.
Doyle was a Compton Municipal Court commissioner from 1995 until court unification in 2000. The Loyola Law School graduate was admitted to the State Bar in 1979.
Copyright 2010, Metropolitan News Company