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LASC Judges Kumar, Luna, Madden to Retire
By a MetNews Staff Writer
Judges Sanjay T. Kumar, Ana Maria Luna, and Patrick T. Madden are readying to vacate their Los Angeles Superior Court posts.
Luna’s last day on the bench will be June 30 and, after using earned vacation days, she will officially retire on July 11. Kumar and Madden will each officially retire on his actual last day on the bench—July 15 for Kumar and July 1 for Madden.
Kumar, 60, was appointed to the Superior Court in 2005 by then-Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger. He was a commissioner of that court from 2001-05 and was a state deputy attorney general for 11 years before that.
Election Challenge
He faced an election challenge in 2012 by a then-assistant city attorney in Hawthorne, Kim Smith, who did not deny targeting Kumar because he thought the judge’s foreign-sounding name rendered him vulnerable at the polls. The incumbent attained 60% of the vote in the June 5 primary.
A stint on Div. Five of this district’s Court of Appeal as a pro tem prompted the presiding justice of that panel, Paul Turner (now deceased) to urge his appointment as a justice of the court and Kumar did come under consideration in 2013, but the governor, Democrat Jerry Brown, opted not to choose the Republican Kumar.
Year after year, he has been assigned by the state’s chief justice to the Superior Court’s Appellate Division.
He studied law at Pepperdine.
Served as Commissioner
Luna, 66, was a Southeast Municipal Court commissioner (serving in the South Gate branch) from 1992-95. She was elected in the June 7, 1994 primary to a judgeship on that court for a term commencing Jan. 3, 1995.
She was previously a Los Angeles County deputy public defender.
Her law degree is from USC.
Madden was appointed to the Long Beach Municipal Court in 1998 by then-Gov. Pete Wilson. At the time, he was a named partner at the law firm of Cameron. Madden, Pearlson, Gale, and Sellars.
He served as a clerk from 1972-73 for then-U.S. District Court Judge Malcolm M. Lucas of the Pearson Central District of California (who was later California’s chief justice and is now deceased).
Madden earned his law degree at USC.
Luna and Madden became judges of the Superior Court in 2000 as the result of court unification.
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