Tuesday, March 13, 2012
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Ballot Designation Challenges Loom as Filing Ends for Los Angeles Superior Court Candidates
By KENNETH OFGANG, Staff Writer
Several potential challenges loom to ballot designations chosen by candidates for Los Angeles Superior Court candidates following Friday’s filing deadline.
David Gould, campaign consultant for Deputy District Attorney Sean D. Coen, said all three of Coen’s opponents could conceivably have their designations challenged.
Coen is opposed by Joe Escalante, a private attorney who submitted the designation of “Volunteer Temporary Judge”; Craig Gold, a deputy district attorney seeking to run as “Criminal Trial Prosecutor”; and Laurence N. Kaldor, who does family law and other civil work and is seeking to be listed as “Domestic Violence Litigator.” Gould declined to get into the specifics of possible challenges, saying any comment would have to come from attorney Bradley Hertz of the Sutton Law Firm, who is looking into the matter on Coen’s behalf.
Hertz could not be reached yesterday, but the basis for a challenge to Escalante’s title is obvious, since several candidates have been denied the right to use that designation, or similar designations, in the past.
A challenge is also possible, a source said, to the designation listed by Kenneth Hughey in his challenge to Superior Court Judge James Otto. Hughey seeks to be shown on the ballot as “Retired Criminal Prosecutor.”
Hughey is retired from the Los Angeles City Attorney’s Office. But since he is currently in private practice, his right to use a “retired” designation may be questioned.
At least one previous judicial candidate who was a retired prosecutor and wanted to be listed as such on the ballot had the designation stricken by a Superior Court judge because he was in private law practice at the time of the election. But the decision was not appealed and thus did not result in citable precedent.
The full list of Superior Court candidates and their chosen ballot designations is as follows:
Office No. 3—Sean D. Coen, Gang Homicide Prosecutor; Joe Escalante, Volunteer Temporary Judge; Craig Gold, Criminal Trial Prosecutor, and Laurence N. Kaldor, Domestic Violence Prosecutor.
Office No. 10—Sanjay T. Kumar, Superior Court Judge, and Kim Smith, Criminal Prosecutor.
Office No. 38—Lynn Diane Olson, Judge of the Superior Court, Office Number 38, and Douglas W. Weitzman, Consumer Rights Attorney.
Office No. 65—Shannon Knight, Gang Homicide Prosecutor; Matt Schonbrun, Criminal Prosecutor; and Andrea C. Thompson, Child Molestation Prosecutor.
Office No. 78—Kenneth R. Hughey, Retired Criminal Prosecutor, and James D. Otto, Judge of the Superior Court.
Office No. 114—Ben M. Brees, Consumer Attorney; Eric Harmon, Gang Homicide Prosecutor; Berj Parseghian, Environmental Attorney.
In other election-related news, Deputy District Attorney Steven J. Ipsen, who took out papers last week to run for a seat on the county’s Democratic Central Committee, did not file for that post by Friday’s deadline. It was unclear yesterday whether Ipsen, who has not returned MetNews phone calls in the past week, would finalize his previously announced candidacy for district attorney by tomorrow’s deadline.
Copyright 2012, Metropolitan News Company