Jim Cooper's Orange County; Candidates for Superior Court Judge.

Jim Cooper's Orange County is made possible by grants from the Harian Grace steel foundation providing charitable assistance to deserving organizations in the areas of health education and culture by signal landmark incorporated developer of Southern California real estate and builder of Landmark homes by Robert Half an account temp's providing permanent and temporary accounting financial and EDP personnel and by Disney Land part an important part of Orange County for over 30 years. We were. Welcome to elect an 86 series of important election programs designed to present the candidates and issues to local voters for the November general election. Your vote does matter and this program aims to help you be better informed and making those voting decisions.

In today's program we look at the race for office five Orange County Superior Court. The possession of superior court judge is one of the most important and least understood of all the local elective offices a superior court judge served six years the longest of any political office term Orange County now has 54 Superior Court and nine commissioners an all time high and yet a shortage of Superior Court is a serious problem in this county. This is a nonpartisan office. The pay is eighty one thousand five hundred five dollars per year. In addition to their criminal justice roles superior court judges make many civil decisions having profound and far reaching effect on the quality of life in Orange County. In fiscal year 1986 there were sixty four thousand six hundred twenty eight cases filed in Orange County Superior Court. Of these fifty six hundred ninety seven were in juvenile court 39 56 were criminal filings and fifty thousand four hundred sixty six were civil cases. The complexity as well as the quantity of litigation today poses enormous challenges for judges. The

typical length of both criminal and civil trials has been made much longer than in previous years. A good justice system is important to everyone. And now let's meet the candidates. William Bedworth is a deputy district attorney having served in the Orange County District Attorney's Office in 1971. A graduate of UC Berkeley Law School he's been more than he's. He's had more than 70 trials by jury in Orange County and has tried cases in the California and U.S. Supreme Court. He's one of 17 managing attorneys in the DA's office and teaches trial practice at Western State University Law School. Robert Gallivan since July 28 has served as commissioner in the harbor municipal court after his law degree from UC San Diego in 1965. He served a year in the San Diego prosecutor's office and later as a deputy chief prosecutor for Costa Mesa. His private practice in Irvine specialized in domestic personal injury and civil cases he served as his superior court arbitrator for the past five years. Well now each candidate will make a statement one minute on his candidacy after which I'll ask some

questions on the issues. Now that started with Mr. Bedworth. Thank you Jim. My name is Bill is where I've served you as a deputy district attorney for the last 15 years in this county during that time I've worked as hard as I know how to see that justice in our county is fair and swift and to see that victims are not victimized by the very courts designed to protect them. I'm proud of my record as a prosecutor as a trial lawyer I compiled a 90 percent conviction ratio. In fact I only lost three cases in my entire career as an appellate lawyer. I've represented you in the California Supreme Court and Courts of Appeal on many occasions. In 1982 when our legislature passed new tougher laws on drunk driving I won the landmark case in Orange County which upheld their constitutionality. And there are several men on death row today in part because of my legal skills. I've made myself an expert in the criminal law because you and my family the people of Orange County deserve nothing less. I've worked very hard. I'm very proud to be endorsed by 39 of our superior court

judges in this county and in the local law. Lawyers pulled by the Orange County Bar Association. I received more highly qualified votes than any other candidate in the history the I'm also endorsed by virtually every law enforcement agency in the county I'm proud of that. I hope you'll continue to oppose your trust in me in November. Thank you. Thank you Mr. Gallivan. Yes at the present time I serve as a court commissioner at the harbor minutes but having been appointed by the harbor court judges in July of this year. My duties include the presiding over misdemeanor jury trials civil trials up to $25000 small claims and traffic matters. I believe that a superior court judge must possess strong moral fiber a broad legal background and have a proper judicial temperament. I sincerely believe that I possess all those qualities. My background includes graduating from the University of Los Angeles and University of San Diego School Law graduate. I'm a former prosecutor. I have 20 years experience as a trial lawyer and I've also served as an arbitrator actually for 10 years Jim not five. My family consists of married my wife for 29

years I have five children. I've been endorsed by the California Republican assembly. Fifteen past presidents. The bar association and the ratings that Bill speaks about I was the highest rated in 19:4 election and this rating in that election I had 95 percent in the most recent rating I received 98 percent. I feel I'm very well qualified and recognized by my peers and I make it excellent superior court judge and I like to consider my candidacy. One of the mandates I think any candidate must have is to define what he considers to be important issues. So I'm going ask you both to respond to that question what do you feel are the important issues in this race. I will start with you Mr. Gore. OK Jim I think that in your opening you touched on the problem. I have found that in running for office that everybody does get quite focused on the criminal aspect of it. And the figures that you give 80 percent of what a superior court judge a judge is doing general services he's going to be doing civil as well as criminal. So the issue that the voter has to look at is which of us in this particular race has the broadest possible

legal background and my background. I have tried every conceivable type of civil case. I've also tried criminal cases. I've been a prosecutor. So I think that the court is faced with an overall burgeoning influx of litigation which you've alluded to. I have some comments on some of the things that we've done and what we hope to do in the future as a civil superior court judge. I think that the the process has been helped a great deal by the influx of arbitration. In 1978 we went into a voluntary settlement conference so I think Warren Knight initiated that took a big backlog of cases where they bring lawyers together to work to settle cases. And then the mandatory arbitration rules came in where they would take cases that the Superior Court would be deemed to be worth less than 25000 and send them out to private lawyers who are screened for their ability to process these cases. And I think continuing to do that is going to help to

hopefully break the backlog. All right. How would you respond to that. The question is what do you regard as the important issues in this race. Well I agree with thought that volume is a big problem for our judges. We're trying to get more judges. Until we can get more judges. We need better judges and judges who work hard. 15 years ago when I was starting out as a lawyer and was trying to learn long the weekends so I could try cases during the week. It was rare when I came into the office on a weekend to run into a judge. Now that happens a lot in to their credit. Our judges are working very very hard but we need more of them. Volume is a big big problem. Another problem that I think the voters care a great deal about is law enforcement. People have developed the perception that the courts aren't protecting them. They are in fact criminals are getting more than a fair shake in our courts that law enforcement isn't getting a fair shake. I think that's very very important too. I think that's why they're so interested in my candidacy. Did you say law enforcement has not been getting a fair shake that I understand that's the perception that people get and I'm afraid on occasion

that's true. In what way would you argue on that a little bit. Well it's been my feeling for a long long time that somehow the courts have overlooked the pronouncements of the United States Supreme Court which say that while the defendant is entitled to a fair trial he is not entitled to a perfect trial. And I think that in our quest for a perfect trial for defendants We have bent over too far and we've made it too tough on victims too tough on law enforcement. I certainly would not advocate anything less than a fair trial for anybody. But I think it's critical that we keep in mind that all the Constitution requires is a fair trial not a perfect one. What do you tend to agree with that that the observation was that law enforcement hadn't always been getting a fair shake. I would put them in the 21 years I've been at the business. I've noticed a dramatic change in all facets of the law criminal and civil. Twenty years ago they came down with the Miranda decision and from there there's been a swing to the protection of the individual's rights who was challenged as having committed a crime. I sort of feel that society through the legislature and the courts

seems to respond to that. And that's what's happened with the Prop 8 1980. It's happened with prop 51 that just went down. I think that now of course there is a move afoot to challenge Roseboro. I think all of these things are society reacting to the impediments that have been somewhat placed in the progress of trying to expedite justice. Let me talk about pick up on that and the balance that you will see when people walk into their ballots they're going to find some judicial choices not this great. I'm talking about the race for validating Chief Justice and the other associate justices. And one of the big campaigns is a group that you will find I'm sure you all heard about this is called California to defeat Roseboro and they have targeted associate in addition to Roseburg associate justice and their boss Cruz Reynoso and Growden. Would you tell us how you feel about that race would you tend to vote yes or to vote no for reaffirmation of the people. I'm going to vote for another 12 years 12 years. We have them.

Excuse me Jim I'm going to vote against Roseburg hesitation. It has been my unfortunate task as part of the defeat that part of the DA's task force to review all of Roseberry criminal law. And I will vote against Roseboro because I am firmly convinced that law enforcement can't get a fair shake from Roseburg. I will vote against Cruz and also for the same reason just this mosque. I will vote for it. I don't always agree with just this mosque but I think he's fair and justice Growden is a very very tough call. I'm not sure how. To call that one and I probably won't make up my mind until shortly before the election because we're still getting opinions from these courts. I think it's important to keep in mind though that this election is something provided for in the California Constitution. This isn't something that the voters just came up with a couple of years ago or some conservative politicians develop this year. We've had this Constitution for 150 years. If the founders of our state had wanted Supreme Court justices to have lifetime appointments they could have given it to them. If the people the state wanted them to have lifetime appointments they could have amended their constitution. They

haven't. I have to feel therefore that they want Supreme Court justices who are accountable to the people. And there's absolutely no reason why these people shouldn't stand for election. All right. What about your vision of the same question that the drive is targeted particularly Rose Bird to associate justices family mosque Cruz Reynoso and Joseph Gordon. How are you going to vote Jim I feel that the L.A. Times read and ran an editorial about six months ago or four months ago where they said that this is tantamount to an impeachment process. I categorically deny that that's what it is. It is provided for. It's like it's legislated every 12 years these people have to stand for election. As far as Rosebery. I concur with Bill that I think that her presence on the court has really cause chaos and that the court should get on with its business and I'm going to vote against her. It's foreigners Reynoso and Growden. I'm of the opinion that you do want to have an independent judiciary. It's very very important that we maintain that at the L.A. Daily Journal came out with an article just recently where they reviewed

277 cases were these three people voted. They went to the 84 and the eighty five cases they never billed as a block. I think you have to look at all three of these people because the other justices independently at this point I appreciate that there are people out there who want to put all three of them out. That's their right under the process that we have. I personally at this point I think the jury's out on the other two. But you will vote no on on bird and no one else at this time at this point. All right. Another election that you'll have to make a choice on a night and these are the ones that are relevant to this race in this very court. I think it's fair questions. Is proposition 61. You know the Gahn initiative which would set the governor's paid 80000 every other public employee would be 64000 being 80 percent of that. This would have repercussions and then certainly the legal community the judicial community the district attorney's offices all over the state. How are you going to vote on them again and they should have number proposition 61.

They are trying to force myself. I have a special interest obviously if I win the election it's going to affect your fate would be what eighty one thousand dollars. Right. And if the if it awful passes it will affect my present pay. I just think Jim with the curtain close there are going to be a lot of number of people who are going to be tempted to vote yes on that. But I think if they if they listen to the arguments and the discussions that pertain to it it really is going to cause in my opinion a tremendous degree of mediocrity in all the professions is going to affect the doctors the teachers law enforcement the DA's office the judiciary as I understand it is supposed to be targeted to pensions but it doesn't affect pensions as such. How are you going to tell a police officer who making whatever 20 or 30 thousand dollars a year and the captain or the higher ranking officer might be making over 64. What is his hope for a progression as income. I think it's going to have a tremendously unbelievably dilatoriness effect on public service.

So you're going to vote no. Absolutely. All right. The Gahn initiative. Jim I'm afraid again initiative is a real bad idea. I'll vote against it. Bless his heart. Paul again had the right idea in terms of trying to lower taxes I live in this county. I have two small children I work for the county so I know how tough taxes can be on you but the way to reduce taxes has nothing to do with reducing the quality of government services. By seeing that all government employees have their salaries reduced and that's what Jan would do. Granted it is aimed at the top of the salary scale but it only makes sense that if you reduce the salary scales at the top eventually all the other salary scales are going to be similarly compressed. The result would be that we aren't going to be able to attract first rate surgeons from out-of-state to come in and teach and work at our medical centers and we are going to be able to attract first rate lawyers into judicial races and we aren't going to be able to attract first rate lawyers into our DA's office in our county councils offices. In fact what we'll end up with is a second rate government I think payment

fair payment for government services is a good investment. Again an it is a bad idea. Let's take it to another question that has to do with the brain of the jury in criminal justice aren't counting on to the embarrassment of having a federal court judge. Decree that you can't have more than 4500 prisoners in our jail in Orange County every day and yet today as we're doing this program. The average is running as high. Thirteen hundred and seventy five prisoners today within 25 prisoners of that. Mark are you annoyed. Are you outraged over the jail conditions that pertain in Orange County and tell us how your feelings are. Well I'm frustrated by it as a prosecutor. You know. I don't believe that jail should be anything but jail. I feel that if a person is put in jail he's put there for punishment and that he shouldn't be living in a Cadillac jail as it's sometimes described but neither should he be living and living in subhuman conditions. We have a serious problem with overcrowding in our jails. We're trying to develop

solutions to that problem sheriff Gates has worked very hard on solutions for that problem and it is perhaps a lot easier to sit outside the county and throw rocks at people inside and say that your jail is inadequate. We're building a new jail. We're building a new intake center right behind the main jail which would alleviate some of that problem. We're working real hard on the music facility out in El Toro that will alleviate some of the problem. In the meantime we've just had to work very very hard to make sure that when we put people in jail there are people who really belong in jail. Your comments on that. The festering problem of the Orange County jail Jim it is an incredible problem and it affects everybody at the level that is the municipal court commissioner. Part of our function is to intervene. I mean it's and I know all the judges face the same problem. Bail hearings come before you and the question is do you put these people back on the street knowing that there's going to be problems with the overcrowded conditions of the jail sentencing I think is affected.

I mean there's a real concern I think in the judicial community as well as law enforcement but it really is sort of a political thing and I have no answers as to why we don't have a jail and what we can do about it we sure need a jail. There's a battle going on of course right now over whether it's going to go in Anaheim near the Angels stadium or it's not. And that's actually been injected into the race for us for supervising team. Before really this issue of criminal justice because that's certainly an important part of a. Superior Court judges mandate. In fact I'll give the I like to have our audience know exactly what the figures are and these are given to us by Alan Slater. Which are the weighted caseload that means how much actual hours of tape you have on the hours of superior court judges how they're being spent. And let's take a look at the figures as of today on Superior Court weighted case loads of 85 to 86 1985 86 civil cases took 68 percent of those and criminal cases took twenty one point two percent. Before we leave. Criminal justice are we doing a good job as we ought to be doing and criminal justice in our county.

Well Jim it's my understanding throughout the state that our bench is recognized as one of the higher level benches in the country. The I think that we are doing a good job. Part of the problem that I see it again is that there has been an increase in the criminal filings but there's also been likewise increase the increase in the civil filings. Part of the solution to give more time to the criminal cases is to possibly increase the arbitration limit from 25 to 50000 because in these cases that are taken out of the system as you are I'm sure aware probably I think the figures are 97 percent never come back and there's only 20 percent that eventually go to trial. There are some people that 90 percent of the figure that we're giving them my honest later 90 percent of this for the Black Sabbath or 97 percent of my understanding only 3 percent of these cases are sent to arbitration ever really come back in and have a jury trial. Some of the trial lawyers might say well you're talking about the ones that go to the arbitrator go to $5

or less civil cases. Right. So the overall load the overall load of cases file civil cases filed. 90 percent are never come to trial. That's right. And when you pull those out you make more room for criminal cases. If we increase the limitation from 25 to 50 civil cases on civil cases we're going to again make more room for criminal cases. All right. The question about criminal justice or believe that we're doing a good job and we ought to be doing in criminal justice in our county. No we're doing an awfully good job. I'm very proud of our judges I'm very proud of our DA's office but I don't think you ever do as good a job as you should do in criminal law. The things that are at stake there are just so important. People's lives are being decided both in terms of criminals and victims the things that are being cited there are so important that you can never devote enough time. You can never devote enough effort to those cases. They do take up only 20 some percent of our workload because that's all we've given them. As Bob's pointed out the bar association of which I'm a member of the Board of Directors has

supported increasing the arbitration level so that we can get more of 25 to 50 50 thousand. So we can get more room for the criminal cases but it's not just a matter of room. It's a matter of finding people who are committed to working in that area people who will devote their lives to working in that area which is traditionally not as lucrative as the civil side of practice. I want to ask you about that too about specialization. But first I'd like to give some figures that I think maybe our borders and audience ought to hear about. The average time now. If you take a case if a case were filed today that the time to get that to trial from the date of filing to trial is about 22 months in Orange County. If you take the time from an issue to trial at 10 to 12 months for civil cases is that a good enough figure or should we be working to make it better. I'm talking about the time of the filing of cases and we talk about the 90 percent to this for either by arbitration or mediation. We doing good enough on civil cases. We want start with Jim that figure you just mentioned is really astounding when you think that 10

years ago you may have had to wait five years or four and a half years some time before the filing to get to trial. And actually I've heard figures that it's as little as nine months that you can get a case to trial if you really want to go to trial. And with all of those cases that do finally wind up going to trial you can get to trial in nine months in this county right now. Those are the figures that are now giving us well even if we're doing very well I would have given nine to 12 months but even so is that good enough. What do you say. It may seem very slow to the individual litigant but by comparison with how things are being done in the rest of the state that's a good time you know we're doing really well in the civil cases. Let's talk about this age of specialization and we're over in this area again for the 68 percent of all the way the case loads of the of the energies of all the superior court these 54 judges nine commissioners. On one hand you have a person who speaks as the late Les McCartney did and I want to give that court because I think it's a philosophical insight that he used to give to judges coming on Supreme Court. He would admonish them and advise them that the

Superior Court is a general jurisdiction court and it needs to be well rounded down and he's a generalist in it. Now I asked you to put that up against the teams that we have now that we have family law teams in the Superior Court. We have criminal law. We have probate teams we have experts and juvenile experts and jury trial experts and civil law and so forth motion sections. How do you contrast that one dream of a journalist a judge for all seasons with his mandate and the complexity of losses that we have now that that that we seem to be going toward the specialist trend. It seems to be an ambivalent comment on the ambivalence. I think what Mr. McCartney was saying is that you need someone who is capable of being a generalist. Now I have spent 15 years as a prosecutor. Very proud of my career as a prosecutor. But I can handle civil cases without too great difficulty. In fact when Cecil Hicks our district attorney was sued in federal court for half a million dollars I was the lawyer he chose to represent him. He could have had the county council who

specializes in civil cases. He could have had a private practitioner. He chose me and I not only won the case. I had it thrown out of court when our local bar association which is made up primarily of civil lawyers voted on Bob in my race. They gave me more highly qualified votes than any other candidate has ever received. Now it's their cases. I'm going to be hearing as a superior court judge and they obviously trust me. And finally. Thirty nine judges of the Superior Court have endorsed my candidacy. Now if I can't handle civil cases then they're going to have to pick them up their workload will be done in a civil case about a whole range of different kinds of civil cases. So it's not so much. Are you now a generalist as is this person capable of becoming a generalist. All right. What about that question. Well the ideal gym probably would be to have specialists. But as a practical matter it's very difficult to do and you do need good generalist. Some of our best judges are people that do both. I do do both. Mr. Bedworth

referred to the bar association for his receiving the highest number of highly qualified candidates or about I'd like to point out to him his office has. Innumerable number of more associates than mine. I was in an office of six I don't know how many Deppy they are. So that that program was somewhat tainted by in a way I think popularity as to who knew. You know how many people you knew. Also I'd point out that if you take the numbers I'm not qualified. And dividing them by qualified and highly qualified. It was very very close with myself actually probably being a tad higher than Bill. I don't make how if you're looking for a generalist you can challenge my credentials I have been in the criminal area in the civil area and if the if what you want is a generalist then I think I feel the bill. A quick answer from both of you. You had to go around and raise money you've had to try and ask people to give money to you. And some judges are very uncomfortable with that having ethical problems with it. How do you feel about that superior court judges that have to go out and raise money and

ask people and perhaps someday have other people come to his court because some day they may pass a law that says you can't take the money from the lawyers because there's a conflict. But there is it. And it really is not the money that we're talking about. Typically 50 to 100 dollars. I frankly don't like going back to the lawyers and I've done a little fund raising this time but I have gone to them and asked for money and they have contributed and they could find the lawyers have contributed to both of us on both sides of the street. Do you feel uncomfortable about that ethically. Well I really don't Jim because I don't think it's a conflict for me. What about that the ethics that some judges dislike having to be in that political arena where they have to go out and ask for money. Like someone running for city council. But the difference. What about that ethical concern. I certainly dislike doing it but I don't have an ethical problem with it. I think if you look at both of our campaign statements you'll find that the base of support certainly from my campaign is broad enough that the odds are very much in favor of both the attorneys who appear before me having contributed to my campaign. And if they have campaign we're talking as Bob indicated about 50 or 100

dollar small campaigns. And frankly neither of us can be bought for 50 or 100 dollars. All right thank you very much. Our time is almost up now and I want to thank both of you as judicial candidates for your comment. Please join me tomorrow night at this time when all present candidates for the Orange County Board of Supervisors fourth district. I'm Jim Cooper. Thanks for being with us. He. He. He.

He. Jim Cowper's Orange County is made possible by grants from the Harian Grace Steele foundation providing charitable assistance to deserving organizations in the areas of health education and culture. By signal landmark incorporated developer of Southern California real estate and builder of Landmark homes by Robert Half an account temp's providing permanent and temporary accounting financial and EDP personnel and by Disney Land part an important part of Orange County for over 30 years.