Governor Brown Appoints 13 Judges Before Departing

By William Vogeler, Esq. on December 11, 2018 | Last updated on March 21, 2019

Gov. Jerry Brown appointed 13 more judges, including some firsts, as he prepared to leave office.

The appointees include the first Korean-American judge in Alameda County and the first Sikh judge in Sacramento County. Add to that, Brown named the first Filipino-American judge to serve on the Santa Clara County Superior Court.

With the latest appointments, the outgoing governor has chosen more than two dozen Superior Court judges since June. It's not rocket science, but that means Brown picked an average of one new judge every week during his final months.

Three Judicial Firsts

Among the firsts, Brown selected:

  • Eumi K. Lee, of San Francisco, the first Korean-American judge appointed to the Alameda Superior Court
  • Audra Ibarra, of Palo Alto, the first Filipino-American judge to the Santa Clara Superior Court
  • Joginder Dhillon, of Sacramento, the first Sikh judge to the Sacramento County Superior Court

Lee is a clinical professor at the University of California, Hastings College of Law, and Ibarra is counsel at the Appellate Law Group. Dhillon is a senior adviser to the governor.

Brown also named his chief deputy legal affairs secretary, Peter K. Southworth, as a judge for the Sacramento court. The nine other appointees were chosen to serve in Los Angeles, Contra Costa, Riverside, San Diego, and Solano counties.

Then There Were 12

Along with 12 others he named in June, Brown has filled vacancies in major counties throughout the state. That includes Fresno, Orange, Sonoma, Santa Barbara, and San Francisco.

Los Angeles, which received four in June, will have a total of seven new judges upon approval by the Commission on Judicial Performance.

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