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Judges Strobel, Green Set Retirement Dates
By a MetNews Staff Writer
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MARY H. STROBEL |
TERRY A. GREEN |
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Los Angeles Superior Court Judges |
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Two Los Angeles Superior Court judges—Mary H. Strobel and Terry A. Green—are readying to retire from the bench.
Green, 76, has been a judge for more than three decades. His last actual day at the Stanley Mosk Courthouse is scheduled for June 9, and his official retirement date, following his using up earned vacation days, is June 15.
Strobel’s last day in the writs and receivers department at the Mosk Courthouse will be May 12, with an official retirement date of June 12.
Then-Gov. Pete Wilson appointed Green to the Superior Court on Sept. 12, 1995. At the time of that appointment, Green was a judge of the Pasadena Municipal Court.
The Municipal Court appointment by Wilson came on June 2, 1992. Green was, then, of counsel to Adams, Duque & Hazeltine, and had served from 1972-87 as a Los Angeles deputy district attorney.
He received his law degree from USC in 1972.
Green’s wife, Lesley C. Green, was also a Los Angeles Superior Court judge, serving from 2007 until her retirement from the bench on Feb. 19, 2010. She is now a private judge.
Davis Appointee
Strobel, 66, gained her Superior Court appointment on April 12, 2002. It was bestowed by then-Gov. Gray Davis. She, also, is a graduate of USC’s Gould School of Law. Her degree was conferred in 1983.
In 1985, she went to work as a Santa Monica deputy city attorney; became staff counsel to the Los Angeles Charter Reform Commission in 1999; and later returned to the Santa Monica City Attorney’s Office, remaining there until her appointment to the bench.
Strobel on June 17, 2021, struck down the voter-approved Los Angeles County “Measure J” as unconstitutional. It would have required that the Board of Supervisors devote at least 10 percent of locally generated unrestricted tax funds to mental health facilities and other alternatives to jailing.
“The only question presented is whether the ballot process can be used to take this budgeting choice out of the hands of the current and future elected boards,” Strobel said. “The court concludes it cannot.”
Rejects Polanski’s Bid
Strobel in 2020 declined to order the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences to restore the membership of director Roman Polanski. He was ousted—as were Bill Cosby and Harvey Weinstein—based on sexual misconduct.
Polanski left the U.S. in 1978 after he was charged with statutory rape of a 13-year-old girl.
Strobel said in her order:
“While the Board could have found the circumstances surrounding Petitioner’s continued fugitive status, including his allegations of serious judicial and prosecutorial misconduct, mitigated the need for expulsion, the Board’s decision is supported by the evidence, was not arbitrary or capricious, and was not an abuse of discretion.”
In 2019, the judge issued a protective order sought by the Los Angeles Times. The newspaper had sued under the Public Records Act to gain access to of records by the Sheriff’s Department and the District Attorney’s Office and, in turn, the country wanted to pry from the newspaper information as to who had tipped it off as to matters it wanted to probe.
Neither Strobel nor Green had immediate comment as to retirement plans, but each said that such information will be forthcoming.
Copyright 2023, Metropolitan News Company