Friday, December 19, 2025
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LASC Judge Debra Archuleta Draws Public Admonishment
By a MetNews Staff Writer
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DEBRA ARCHULETA Superior Court judge |
Los Angeles Superior Court Judge Debra R. Archuleta yesterday received a public admonishment from the judicial oversight body for engaging “in a pattern of discourteous, undignified, and impatient behavior,” with the commission highlighting that, in multiple instances, she “treated parents and children as if they were criminal defendants, instead of participants in dependency court.”
Noting that dependency cases require non-adversarial atmospheres, the Commission on Judicial Performance (“CJP”) said in yesterday’s decision:
“[I]n seven cases, Judge Archuleta created a contentious environment that failed to promote meaningful participation of all parties, including children. Judge Archuleta created the appearance that she issued orders concerning removal, placement, or, in one matter, a clothing allowance, out of pique.”
The commission also faulted the jurist, who has served on the bench since 2017, with initiating ex parte communications and engaging in independent investigations in the child dependency matters, in one case personally calling a treatment provider to try to ascertain whether a mother had enrolled at the facility.
All of the cited misdeeds occurred between April 2021 and May 2022.
No Removal Petition
In one instance highlighted in yesterday’s decision, the commission noted that she ordered a child removed from his mother’s custody when there was no formal petition or request to alter the minor’s living arrangement pending before the court, purportedly due to the parent having another child during the pendency of the case, and refusing to identify the baby’s father, as well as failing to complete court-ordered programs.
As a result of the order, the child was placed into foster care over the mother’s objection, even though counsel for the Department of Children and Family Services (“DCFS”) represented that the agency was recommending that the court award sole physical and legal custody to the maternal parent.
Saying that her conduct “conveyed the appearance of embroilment and bias against DCFS and the mother,” the commission concluded that “Judge Archuleta violated her duties to uphold the integrity and independence of the judiciary and to participate in establishing, maintaining, and enforcing high standards of conduct” and “to be faithful to the law.”
Disagreement With DCFS
During proceedings relating to a separate matter, she granted a petition filed by DCFS and removed two children from the mother’s custody. She openly disagreed with the agency’s case plan that did not involve a drug and alcohol treatment program for the parent, remarking:
“I can’t believe the department is not ordering this. This is a dereliction of duty by the department….They just want random drug tests. Are you kidding me?”
She said she intended to call the social worker and the supervisor regarding the case plan, which she later did off-the-record. CJP commented:
“Judge Archuleta’s comments regarding DCFS and the case plan, in open court, were sarcastic, discourteous, and disparaging of DCFS, and conveyed the appearance of bias and embroilment. The commission further found that contacting the social worker constituted an improper ex parte communication….”
In 2022, she made remarks that a then-14-year-old child with a history of abuse and psychiatric hospitalizations appeared to be “taking advantage of the situation” and declined to order a clothing allowance because “I’m just not going to reward continued bad behavior.”
Removal of Minor
That year, she also said that she was intending to remove another minor from his grandmother’s care because she had discovered a past report indicating that he had taken a loaded firearm to school and that he had separately suffered a gunshot wound to the leg. During an on-the-record exchange with the child’s attorney, she said:
“His dad is already in state prison, and I’m trying to prevent him from ending up there, to the best of my ability. I believe this young man poses a danger, not only to himself, but to his family and to members of the community at large.”
She ordered him removed, even though a request for such an order had not been filed, over the objection of all of the attorneys involved in the proceedings. CJP opined:
“Judge Archuleta did not state under what authority she was making the removal order. The information [she] relied upon to remove [the child] was old information she had recently discovered. Many of Judge Archuleta’s comments about [the minor] being a danger to others were gratuitous and sarcastic.”
Prior Discipline
Archuleta, who was reelected in 2022 without opposition, previously drew a private admonishment in February 2023 for her conduct in four cases spanning September 2020 through February 2021. In the prior disciplinary case, she was critiqued for “den[ying] litigants the opportunity to be heard” and for vacating an order to return a child to his parents’ custody while giving the appearance that she was ruling out of “pique.”
CJP noted that, in the earlier proceedings, the commission considered as a mitigating factor that the judge, a former prosecutor with the Los Angeles County District Attorney’s Office, was operating “within the first six months of her assignment to dependency court.”
She was transferred to dependency court in early 2020 after an assignment to an infraction court at the Michael J. Antonovich Antelope Valley Courthouse.
Endorsements Withdrawn
The jurist made headlines during her campaign for an open seat on the Superior Court in 2016, having received and then lost endorsements by former District Attorney Steve Cooley, the Association of Deputy District Attorneys, and the Mexican American Bar Association, among others.
Cooley later attributed his change in support as having been prompted by her having filed a grievance against a supervising attorney in the District Attorney’s Office that the former officeholder characterized as “flat-out false.” He commented that he was also bothered by her selecting a ballot designation indicating that she was a “Violent Crimes Prosecutor” despite having spent the year leading up to the election in the White Collar Crimes Division.
In 2023, Archuleta threw her hat in the race for the office of Los Angeles County district attorney. She was defeated in the primary election, in which victor Nathan Hochman and his predecessor, George Gascón, were the top two finishers.
Eight members of the commission voted in favor of a notice of tentative public admonishment. In November, the judge withdrew her objections and decided not to contest the disciplinary action.
Archuleta is up for reelection in 2028.
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