California, State Judges

Are California Lawyers Running For Judicial Office Engaging In 'Lying Contests'?

It's for that reason that the age old question of “what’s in a name?” will no longer apply to judicial ballot designations.

By  
on

Quick! What does “hyperbole” mean? The dictionary defines it as “obvious and intentional exaggeration.” Another definition: “an extravagant figure of speech not meant to be taken literally.”

How about this definition: “a not wholly accurate job description in order to be elected as a Superior Court judge in California, especially in Los Angeles County”?

As lawyers, we are asked about whom to vote for in trial court judicial elections.  Although my local bar association evaluates the candidates and publishes ratings as extremely well qualified, well qualified, qualified, or not qualified, the association’s ratings don’t seem to be widely disseminated and then when it comes time to mark that ballot, the phone calls and emails shower down upon lawyers with the plaintive question of “who do I vote for?” Unless the lawyer is a criminal law practitioner, the answer is usually one of three:  look at the local bar association ratings, recommendations in the local newspaper (if it takes a stand) or the inevitable fallback “flip a coin.”

Even way back in dinosaur days, before California became obsessed with crime statistics, lawyers running for judgeships engaged in ballot designation “lying contests.”   Those lying contests increased once everyone freaked out that the state was being overrun with crime. Then the ballot descriptions became like a three word parlor game of “who can strike the most terror in the hearts of the citizenry if I’m not elected”?

Part of the problem has been the tendency of prosecutors to describe themselves on the ballot in terms that accentuate their “tough on crime” credentials. What has made it even more difficult for voters to decide who to vote for in the last couple of decades is that prosecuting attorneys seeking judicial positions have labelled themselves on the ballot as the roughest, toughest prosecutor in the West, or at least in Los Angeles County. Six-guns at the ready, metaphorically speaking.

Some examples: how do you choose between “violent crimes prosecutor” and “gang homicide prosecutor”? What about the term “child molestation prosecutor”? How about “criminal fraud prosecutor”?  So much for the ballot designations, which have infuriated me and others over past election cycles as being hyperbolic, inflammatory, and making it almost impossible for one who doesn’t have one of those designations to win. Good luck, civil litigators, defense attorneys, or anyone else who hasn’t had the right day job terminology. Even sitting judges have not been immune.

The irony is that given the propensity for voters to choose the candidate who would appear to be the toughest on crime, many of the new judicial officers won’t be assigned to criminal courtrooms, but may well end up either in traffic or family law (domestic relations) looking out at a courtroom of litigants who are representing themselves.

Sponsored

I don’t know how other states handle this situation or whether they even have it, but finally, here in California, the kibosh is being put on these kinds of ballot designations for judicial office. Hooray! This is long overdue.

Effective January 1, 2018, the relevant section of the California Elections Code is amended so that prosecutors who run for judicial office can no longer use such descriptors as “violent crimes prosecutor,”  “gang homicide prosecutor,”  “child molestation prosecutor,” or “criminal fraud prosecutor.”

.            Legislation signed by Governor Edmund G. (Jerry) Brown, Jr., Senate Bill 235, limits the terms that prosecutors can use as ballot designations. It is an attempt to level the playing field between those who have spent their careers as prosecutors and those who have not, but who would make equally fine, if not better, judges than those who have spent their careers in a prosecutorial agency.

SB 235 prohibits misleading, exaggerated ballot designations. The current law had permitted judicial candidates to use three words to describe themselves. Among favorites were “sex crimes prosecutor,” “sexual predator prosecutor,” and other variations intended to show the voting public how tough on crime these candidates were.

The technique worked.

Sponsored

Prosecutors who used one of those terms or variations thereof whomped their opponents, winning a stunning 86% of the time. The designations preyed on the fears of the public without any basis in fact. You would think that candidates running for judicial office would want to be transparent and above board, a kind of dry run for sitting on the bench, but you would have been wrong.

Litigation over ballot designations has not been all that infrequent. As the Los Angeles Times wrote last year, a sexy title on the ballot could get the candidate elected or sued, as candidates went to court to protest some of the designations as misleading at best, outright fraudulent at worst.

So, prosecutors now will have to limit their ballot designations. If a candidate is a prosecutor, then that candidate will be limited to “words designating the actual job title, as defined by statute, charter, or other governing instrument.” Alternatively, the candidate can use

one of four descriptors: attorney, attorney at law, lawyer or counselor at law, along with one other descriptor of the current principal profession, vocation, or occupation of the candidate.  Gee, imagine describing what the lawyer actually does.

Millennials running for judicial office, either as newbies or up for re-election, should hopefully have an easier time with the revision of the ballot designation than the dinosaurs among us. (No, I have never run for judge nor have I ever wanted to.)

No more creative three word designations such as “drug czar prosecutor” or “felony crimes prosecutor” or “premier pedophile prosecutor” (notice my alliteration) or “hang’em high prosecutor”  (the last one is technically four words, so I’ll revise to “death penalty prosecutor”). The judicial election process should now be fairer.

So, the age old question of “what’s in a name?” will no longer apply to judicial ballot designations. Unlike Shakespeare’s Romeo and Juliet, where a rose by any other name would smell as sweet, that maxim no longer holds true for ballot designations. Hey, Will, it’s about time.

old lady lawyer elderly woman grandmother grandma laptop computerJill Switzer has been an active member of the State Bar of California for 40 years. She remembers practicing law in a kinder, gentler time. She’s had a diverse legal career, including stints as a deputy district attorney, a solo practice, and several senior in-house gigs. She now mediates full-time, which gives her the opportunity to see dinosaurs, millennials, and those in-between interact — it’s not always civil. You can reach her by email at oldladylawyer@gmail.com.

Topics

, , , , , ,