Decs&Excs Gets Results (That's My Story and I'm Sticking To It)

This past Wednesday, after writing up my post ["Vox Populunacy," infra] about local Los Angeles voters' ill-informed removal of Judge Dzintra Janavs in favor of a non-practicing attorney-turned-bagel-shop-owner, I did something I have not done before: I wrote a letter to the Editors of the Los Angeles Times to comment on the story.  Here is the text of my letter:

To the Editors:

I have appeared before Judge Dzintra Janavs dozens of times in the past.  She probably ruled against my clients’ positions as often as she ruled for them, but she was a hard working, very smart and very effective judge.  Her defeat in Tuesday’s election is saddening, and that she should be eliminated in favor of a partisan bakery owner – who 'ran against her because she was Republican' -- only adds insult to injury.

But all hope is not lost:

Judge Janavs was not removed from the bench for incompetence or misconduct, and she is as well-qualified now as she ever was.  There is nothing to prevent Governor Schwarzenegger from reappointing Judge Janavs to the bench whenever the next vacancy opens on the Los Angeles Superior Court.

Informed Democrats are as appalled as anyone else over this election result.  Reappointing Judge Janavs would be a non-partisan gesture maintaining the caliber of justice dispensed in Los Angeles.  Thoughtful citizens of all political persuasions should urge the Governor to correct this error and to return Judge Janavs to the bench where she belongs.

[Emphasis added.]

Today, I have learned that the awesome prognosticatory powers of the blogosphere were apparently on display in that letter, because the Times reports that the Governor is going to do exactly as I recommended:

The voters spoke, and now it's the governor's turn.

Less than 72 hours after the Los Angeles County electorate replaced Judge Dzintra Janavs with a bagel store owner with limited legal experience, Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger announced Friday that he would reappoint the veteran jurist to a vacant seat on the bench 'as soon as she completes the paperwork.'

In Tuesday's election, Lynn Diane Olson, who co-owns Manhattan Bread & Bagel in Manhattan Beach with her husband and has barely practiced law in the last decade, bested Janavs, a 20-year veteran of the bench.

Responding to speculation that voters had failed to pick the Latvian-born Janavs in part because of her name, the Austrian-born Schwarzenegger in a written statement said: 'I can relate to the problem of having a name that is hard to pronounce.'

The governor also said the election's 'unfortunate result should not rob California of a fine jurist.'

[Emphasis added.]

So: an anticipatory "Welcome back, your honor!" from Decs&Excs to the still-Honorable judge Janavs.  And now I have to sit right down and right a few more letters. . . .

Comments

[bobby_b]

This is all sort of confusing.

Patterico - the CA prosecuting atty with the rightward slant, who usually blogs fairly sanely and intelligently - has a post on this judge that makes it seem that she's a bad judge - a very bad judge - and credits local lawyers as the source of that judgment.

(See http://patterico.com/2006/06/18/4714/more-on-that-supposedly-better-qualified-judge-who-lost-to-the-bagel-lady-maybe-the-voters-were-right-after-all/ ).

Too much conflicting info from sources I would normally credit. Danger, Will Robinson, Danger! . . .