Wednesday, April 1, 2026
Page 8
Perspectives
Superior Court Candidate Comes Up With a Lame Excuse
By Roger M. Grace
David Ross is a candidate for the Los Angeles Superior Court. His chosen ballot designation was “Deputy Public Defender, County of Los Angeles.” But he’s a member of the Alternate Public Defender’s Office.
Why did he try to use a description that was inaccurate? Here’s his response, in an interview with this newspaper:
“I’m going to give you a short answer to that and then I’d like to move on because I don’t want you to get hung up on that. That’s really kind of a distraction, in my opinion. I took the advice of Judge [Randolph] Hammock that I could use my ballot designation as a ‘Deputy Public Defender.’ I realized I was incorrect. I made that correction. That’s not a big deal.”
Yet, “Deputy Public Defender” is not Ross’s “actual job title.” The significance of that is that Elections Code §13107 provides, in subd. (b)(2)(A), that a lawyer running for a judgeship who wants to allude to his or her government job in a ballot designation must use the “actual job title.”
It must be assumed that Hammock is not oblivious to that requirement because he was a strong proponent of the legislation that created it. He testified in favor of the bill, SB 235, at a 2017 hearing in Sacramento (to which he traveled, at his own expense, on what he took as a vacation day). Every election year, Hammock formally lectures colleagues on election-law requirements and is regarded by judges as to “go-to-guy” for advice on the subject.
So, the representation by a deputy alternate public defender that Hammock told him he could run as a “Deputy Public Defender” did not appear credible.
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Is it a “big deal” that Ross proposed an invalid ballot designation? It was not one that was blatantly deceptive, as some have been. There might be a slight advantage in Ross using “Deputy Public Defender” because the word “alternate” could make it sound as if he were a second-string court-provided defense lawyer—someone akin to a “substitute” teacher. The attempt to use a designation that is statutorily impermissible is of some, but perhaps not huge, significance. But if Ross falsely blames his blunder on advice from Hammock—that is, on counselling that would reflect ignorance on the part of someone on a subject on which he actually possesses expertise—yeah, that’s a “big deal.”
Although Ross had wanted to “move on,” he was later pressed. Below is the dialogue that ensued. It includes a reference to a three-word limitation for ballot designations. Plainly, no such limitation, set forth at various places in the statute, applies to the provision under which a government lawyer uses an “actual job title” and it’s a sure bet that Hammock would not be confused on that point, as intimated by Ross.
Q. Did Judge Hammock explain why he thought you could run as a “Deputy Public Defender”?
A. I’ll let you ask him. We had a discussion. He knew I was an alternate public defender—but he never literally said, “Gee, you might have a problem because your title is four words instead of three.” I think he made the assumption—whether he was right or wrong—that as a deputy—I do the same thing as a deputy public defender. You know that. My title is “Alternate Public Defender”—“Deputy Alternate Public Defender.” So, I’m not casting any blame against him.
Q. What did he explain to you?
A. Well, this was in a rather large Zoom call with about 10 people that were thinking about becoming judges. So, he was imparting advice, and I asked those questions. And he never said, “You know, you might have that issue of having to call yourself a “Deputy Alternate Public Defender.”
Q. What did he tell you? He said that you could run as “Deputy Public Defender”?
A. “He didn’t say that to me, specifically. He was talking about, to all of us, because we were all public defenders or DAs on that Zoom. I don’t think there were any private attorneys.
Q. What did he say?
A. I can’t remember, sir. That was like six months ago.
Q. But you said—you started out by saying that he advised that you could run as “Deputy Public Defender.”
A. No, I said that he said that “Your ballot designation is really valuable and having a ballot designation of ‘Deputy Public Defender’ is extremely valuable. You don’t want to retire and run as a private lawyer.” So, those were the kinds of things he said. I’m not sure that he knew, in particular, that I was an alternate public defender. He may not have known. I don’t know.
Q. So, he didn’t say, straight out, that you could run as—
A. Oh, I don’t mean to imply that of him. He was not giving me particular advice because during that call, he didn’t know me. There were probably 10 or 12 people on the call.
Reminder, Ross said: “I took the advice of Judge Hammock that I could use my ballot designation as a ‘Deputy Public Defender.’ ” He later insisted that he didn’t make that claim.
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I’m reminded of a candidate of like ilk who was interviewed by us years ago, in connection with a possible endorsement. It was before court unification in 2000. He was a judge of a municipal court in a judicial district in the northern part of the county, challenged by an ousted court commissioner. I don’t remember the judge’s name or the year of the election contest—this goes back before our electronic archive—but I do recall the judge’s response when asked about any interest he had in advancement to the Los Angeles Superior Court:
“Oh, I turned that down.”
A Municipal Court judge rejecting an elevation? That seemed unlikely. So, what governor had offered him a higher post which he declined?
As it turned out, in the course of questioning, no appointment to the Superior Court had actually been offered. Rather, the supervising judge of the Los Angeles Superior Court’s Van Nuys branch had purportedly suggested to him that he apply for appointment to the Superior Court, and he hadn’t.
Was a suggestion by a supervising judge tantamount to an offer of a judgeship? The Municipal Court judge assured me that the supervising judge in Van Nuys was a person with great influence.
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One judge says:
“APD David Ross did a full murder trial in my court. I found him also competent and well learned on the law. He was pleasant and did a good job of defending his client. He might come off a bit arrogant, but I personally don’t think he is arrogant. I just think he’s been around a long time and does not have tolerance for lazy and sloppy work. Personally I admire that. But I have warned him that he will have to show patience on the bench, because all we get these days is lazy and sloppy work.”
He does “come off a bit arrogant.”
And a bit foolish in alleging that a judge had advised him to use a faulty ballot designation when, by his own account when quizzed, he had to admit it wasn’t so.
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