Metropolitan News-Enterprise

 

Tuesday, October 30, 2001

 

Page 1

 

New Commissioner Jeffrey Marckese Files to Run for Judge

 

By KENNETH OFGANG, Staff Writer/Appellate Courts

 

Los Angeles Superior Court Commissioner Jeffrey Marckese yesterday became a candidate for judge of that court.

Marckese filed his declaration of intent to run for the seat being vacated by Judge Michael Pirosh, who is retiring in January.

The filing period for judicial candidates began yesterday and ends Nov. 7, although candidates for open seats do not have to file until Nov. 12.

A majority of the 145 judges whose seats are up this year filed declarations yesterday to run for re-election. This will be the first year that all trial judges in the county run countywide, a byproduct of trial court unification that took effect last year.

This will be the second judicial race for Marckese, who ran third last year in the contest won by Katherine Mader.

Marckese said he would again retain campaign consultant Parke Skelton.

Marckese, formerly a referee, was selected commissioner in September. The top choice of the court’s rating panel, he was the only candidate named on a majority of the ballots cast by the court’s judges.

Cleveland Native

A native of Cleveland, Marckese graduated from Ohio University before moving to California and enrolling in Glendale University College of Law.

In another development, Deputy District Attorney Richard Naranjo took out papers to run for the seat of Judge Richard Spann.

Naranjo has been a prosecutor in the Lancaster Courthouse for the past eight years. He said that he did not expect Spann, who is also based in Lancaster and has had health problems, to run for another term.

Another Antelope Valley lawyer, Larry Layton, said last week he would run for the seat if Spann didn’t.

Spann, who was elected to the Antelope Municipal Court in 1990 and became a Superior Court judge last year through unification, could not be reached for comment.

Naranjo has been a deputy district attorney for nearly ten years, having graduated from Southwestern University School of Law in 1991.

Before law school, he worked in inventory and production control for Mallden Mills, a textile firm in Lawrence, Mass.

Rutgers Graduate

Naranjo attended Rutgers University in New Jersey before graduating from the University of Southern New Hampshire. His wife, Wendy Naranjo, is a graduate of Loyola Law School and a member of the State Bar, but is not practicing while caring for the couple’s three children.

Naranjo said he would run a “grassroots” campaign, mostly by distributing fliers and putting up more signs.

 He said he wouldn’t hire a professional consultant.

“I can’t afford it,” he told the MetNews.

He said he was running because in the last four or five years “people have said to me, ‘You’d be a good judge.’”

 

Another Candidate

 

Another potential candidate, Pasadena lawyer David Crawford, said he might run for Spann’s seat as well.

Crawford, a lawyer for 16 years, primarily in insurance defense, pulled papers last week to run for the seat now held by Judges Irving Feffer, Floyd Baxter, John Henning, and Alan Kalkin.

State election laws allow a candidate to declare for multiple seats before committing to one during the nominations period, which begins this year on Nov. 13.

Crawford said he did not learn until yesterday that there were be open seats available this year.

Crawford said he would run for the bench because it was “something I’ve been working toward on since I was five.” He said he would not hire a consultant or run an expensive campaign.

Crawford, a graduate of the University of Nevada, Las Vegas and Pepperdine Law School, said he felt confident of his judicial abilities, having served for a number of years as a traffic court judge pro tem, in addition to his civil trial experience.

 

Copyright 2001, Metropolitan News Company