Lillie to Sit as Pro Tem Justice on State Supreme Court

Monday, August 20, 2001

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Lillie to Sit as Pro Tem Justice on State Supreme Court

By a MetNews Staff Writer

Presiding Court of Appeal Justice Mildred Lillie of this district’s Div. Seven has been assigned to sit as a temporary justice of the state Supreme Court for one of five cases on the September calendar.

That calendar, to be heard Sept. 4 in San Francisco, will be the first since the July 19 death of the court’s longest-serving justice Stanley Mosk. Because Mosk’s successor, has not been appointed, the court must assign pro tem justices in order to have a full complement of seven members for each case.

A memorial to the late justice will be held prior to the arguments, and is to begin at 9 a.m.

Lillie will sit on the case of People v. Slayton, 77 Cal.App.4th 564. The Court of Appeal there set aside an information on the ground that the defendant, who had counsel on other charges, was improperly interrogated in counsel’s absence about related crimes with which defendant has not been charged.

The attorney general argues that such interrogation doesn’t violate the Sixth Amendment, and that even if it does, dismissal of the new charges is not the proper remedy.

This will be Lillie’s 20th sitting on the Supreme Court. Her first was in 1960, two years after she was appointed to the Court of Appeal by the late Gov. Goodwin Knight.

Lillie, 86, is the state’s longest-serving judicial officer and the author of more than 3,000 appellate opinions.. She was appointed to the Los Angeles Municipal Court in 1947 by the late Gov.—later U.S. Chief Justice—Earl Warren, who elevated her to the Superior Court in 1949.

Four other members of the Court of Appeal have also been assigned by Chief Justice Ronald M. George to the September calendar—Justice Harry E. Hull of the Third District; Justice James J. Marchiano of the First District, Div. One; Justice Herbert I. Levy of the Fifth District; and Presiding Justice Daniel J. Kremer of the Fourth District, Div. One.

Hull will sit in Haynie v. Superior Court, 80 Cal.App.4th 603, in which the high court is being asked to define the scope of the exemption from disclosure under the Public Records Act for records of complaints to and investigations by police agencies.

Marchiano will sit in Draper v. Aceto, a review of a Fifth District Court of Appeal case, in which the opinion was unpublished, dealing with attorney fees in third-party claims by injured workers.

Levy will join the court for the first case of the afternoon session, Vu v. Prudential Insurance, in which the Ninth U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals has certified a question regarding interpretation of Insurance Code Sec. 2071, a statute of limitations for property claims.

Kremer will serve on the last case on the calendar, People v. Kipp. Martin James Kipp, who has already had one death sentence affirmed, is appealing another.