[X] Chellei G. Jimenez

Tuesday, April 7, 2026

Page 8

Chellei G. Jimenez

Los Angeles Superior Court Office No. 65

here are 11 judicial Contests on the June 2 ballot in Los Angeles County. The choice in 10 of the races is clear, in our view. Not so with Office No. 65. There are two candidates who are intelligent, articulate, succinct, and possessed of ideal temperament for the bench. They are Deputy Public Defender Justin Allen Clayton and attorney Chellei G. Jimenez.

Attorneys, parties, and witnesses would feel at ease in the courtroom of either of them.

Clayton is the deputy in charge of the Public Defender’s Office’s Inglewood branch. His latest office performance evaluation (2024-25) says he “has demonstrated excellent leadership skills in this assignment, while also handling multiple serious felony cases,” adding:

“He is a true asset to the operation and to the office.”

The report also says:

“He is adept at defusing tense situations, and maintains a calm exterior even in challenging circumstances….He treats everyone with courtesy and respect.”

Nonetheless, his overall rating is only “competent.” The previous report termed his performance “very good.” Our expectation is that if he does become a judge, he will be viewed as an outstanding one.

He may be lacking, however, as a campaigner; his website lists no endorsements. Jimenez’s doesn’t, either.

Jimenez has no office evaluations. That’s understandable given that she owns The Jimenez Law Group, APC. Her website says:

“As the managing attorney of her own law firm, Chellei has taken hundreds of cases from start to finish and tried more than 300 matters to decision. She knows the law. She knows the pressure of a live courtroom. And she knows the real cost when cases drag on. Time in court means time away from jobs, children, health, and stability. As a judge, she will run an efficient, prepared courtroom that respects people’s lives and moves cases forward.”

Laudable goals. We sense that she would attain them.

Clayton has been in the courtroom far more often than Jimenez, which is a factor—but while in her law office, Jimenez has not been playing solitaire. She’s been dealing with clients, undertaking legal research, and drafting documents, all broadening her knowledge and skills.

Neither had the advantage of education at a top-notch law school. Clayton went to Thomas Jefferson School of Law in San Diego which is not accredited by the American Bar Association (“ABA”). Jimenez has a degree from Whittier Law School in Orange County which did have ABA-approval, but its graduates, as reflected by statistics, had low chances of passing the bar exam, and the school went out of business. What matters most is that after graduating, each proved to be an able lawyer.

Clayton and Jimenez is each worthy of a judgeship and it is our hope that one of them will win election and that the other will gain an appointment by the governor.

nna Slotky Reitano is a deputy county counsel who possesses some admirable qualities. She has a strong determination to become a judge and to carry out her duties in that role, should she attain it, conscientiously. But we do have concerns about her.

She ran for a Superior Court open seat four years ago. Reitano, then a deputy public defender, was one of four candidates billed as the “Defenders of Justice.” None of the four ran her own campaign. The effort to elect them was staged by a group that funds left-wing causes and election hopefuls.

Reitano notes that she, personally, did not take extremist stances. True. But others on the slate did, and the promoters who controlled the operation were far to the left. Each of the four lent support to the others.

If Reitano does not share the philosophy of her slate-mates, she should not have merged her identity with theirs, thus impeding confidence in her objectivity should she gain membership on the court.

A judge must act with independence, the pawn of no one. Yet, she was not in charge of her 2022 campaign—there actually being no campaign for her apart from that of the Defenders of Justice.

This year, she sought to run as “Deputy Counsel, Justice & Safety Division, County of Los Angeles.” The relevant Election Code provisions in §13107 allow a candidate for judicial office who is a member of a government law office to exceed the normal three-word limit on a ballot designation by including the “actual job title” and the geographical area of service.

Her actual job title is “Deputy County Counsel.” Her assignment is to the Justice and Safety Division. The Office of Registrar-Recorder excised the improperly inserted words (which happen to portray her job as being that of promoting justice and safety). But Reitano continues to quibble about it, producing pay stubs showing her “Home Department” as being the County Counsel’s Office and the “Home Unit” as the Justice and Safety Division. Her signature block on office emails, she points out, reads:

And Reitano wants a position in which she would be determining the relevancy of evidence?

She provides an April 1 letter addressed “To Whom It May Concern” signed by David Gould of Gould and Orellano, billed as “The Political Reporting Experts.”

Gould, through the years, has handled campaign financial reporting for judicial candidates. Political consultant Joseph R. Cerrell, the master of orchestrating judicial campaigns, referred his clients to Gould for accounting services. Following Cerrell’s 2010 death, Gould has tried his hand at running some campaigns.

In the letter, Gould says:

“I understand that Anna’s ballot designation may have caused some confusion. In discussing the designation, I advised her to include her full title—specifically referencing ‘Deputy County Counsel, Justice and Safety Division’…based on how her role appeared in her email signature and pay stubs….My understanding at the time was that, if any portion of the designation was not permissible, the Clerk’s Office would make the appropriate corrections.”

Assuming that this was not intended as an April Fools’ Day gag, Reitano’s apparent reliance on advice from Gould, who is not an attorney—rather than interpreting, for herself, election-law requirements—is pathetic.

Reitano earlier expressed the view, in essence, that if her chosen designation is not valid, oh, well, the Office of Registrar-Recorder could correct it. She did not take personal responsibility for determining whether the designation she submitted was in compliance with the Election Code or not; that would be left up to others—and her good-faith was established, she apparently thought, because David Gould said the wording was OK. She also did not take personal responsibility for her 2022 campaign.

Reitano might well function adequately as a judge. However, if she were to become a bench officer, and tough calls needed to be made, would she defer to the advice of colleagues or other sources, rather than exercising independent judgment? That, we perceive, is likely.

amuel Wolloch Krause tried to use as his ballot designation, “Attorney/Temporary Judge,” which the Registrar-Recorder’s Office initially accepted, but later bounced. Krause knew or should have known that the designation was impermissible.

The 1988 Court of Appeal decision in Luke v. Superior Court (Jones) declares that no one “who is not a ‘judge,’ as that term is defined in the constitution and statutes of this state, may utilize a ballot designation containing the word ‘judge’ or a derivative thereof.” Aside from that, handling traffic-ticket cases or the like now and then does not meet the requirement of Elections Code §13107 of being a “principal” pursuit. That statute requires that the pursuit be a principal “profession, vocation, or occupation” and occasional volunteer work as a bench officer is none of those; under 7 California Code of Regulations §20716, it’s an “avocation” which may not be used as a ballot designation.

Moreover, the Registrar-Recorder’s Office should have disallowed the designation at the get-go, and Krause should not have proposed it, because a designation is proscribed under §13107 if “[i]t would mislead the voter.” It’s not nice for an employment-benefits lawyer to try to fool voters into thinking that he holds a judgeship, even if only on a “temporary” basis. The word “temporary” can be confused with “interim,” and many persons placed in a government position on an interim basis wind up being awarded the job on a permanent basis.

Krause is now listed as “Attorney/Legal Author.”

Our choice is Jimenez. Why her over Clayton? Gut instinct. We can’t offer any better rationale.