Los Angeles County Superior Court
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The Superior Court of California, County of Los Angeles, is the California superior court with jurisdiction over
Los Angeles County Los Angeles County, officially the County of Los Angeles, and sometimes abbreviated as L.A. County, is the most populous county in the United States and in the U.S. state of California, with 9,861,224 residents estimated as of 2022. It is the ...
, which includes the city of
Los Angeles Los Angeles ( ; es, Los Ángeles, link=no , ), often referred to by its initials L.A., is the largest city in the state of California and the second most populous city in the United States after New York City, as well as one of the world' ...
. It is the largest single unified
trial court A trial court or court of first instance is a court having original jurisdiction, in which trials take place. Appeals from the decisions of trial courts are usually made by higher courts with the power of appellate review (appellate courts). Mos ...
in the
United States The United States of America (U.S.A. or USA), commonly known as the United States (U.S. or US) or America, is a country primarily located in North America. It consists of 50 states, a federal district, five major unincorporated territorie ...
. The Los Angeles Superior Court operates 38 courthouses throughout the county, including the Stanley Mosk Courthouse at the
Los Angeles Civic Center The Civic Center neighborhood of Los Angeles, California, is the administrative core of the City of Los Angeles, County of Los Angeles, and a complex of city, county, state, and federal government offices, buildings, and courthouses. It is loca ...
. , the Presiding Judge is Samantha P. Jessner. Sherri R. Carter is the Executive Officer/Clerk of Court. With 5,400 employees and an annual budget of $769.5 million, the superior court operates nearly 600 courtrooms throughout the county.''A look at your Superior Court'', published by Los Angeles Superior Court


History

Stanley Mosk Courthouse in 1983 When California declared its statehood in 1849 and became a part of the United States, the first California Constitution authorized the legislature to establish municipal and such other courts as it deemed necessary. The 1851 California Judiciary Act divided the state into districts, placing Los Angeles, San Bernardino, and San Diego counties into one district. Each district had its own court, below which were county and then
justice of the peace A justice of the peace (JP) is a judicial officer of a lower or ''puisne'' court, elected or appointed by means of a commission ( letters patent) to keep the peace. In past centuries the term commissioner of the peace was often used with the sa ...
courts. Judge Agustin Olvera of the Los Angeles County Court and Judge Jonathan R. Scott of the Los Angeles Justice of the Peace Court were the first judges of these lower courts. Almost immediately, the district court system was burdened by the vast expanse of the district. District judges were required to hold court proceedings where the cases were filed. Because of the distances district court judges had to travel to conduct trials and the sudden growth in population due to the California Gold Rush, the district court system became ineffective and non-responsive to the needs of its constituency. In 1879, California adopted a new
constitution A constitution is the aggregate of fundamental principles or established precedents that constitute the legal basis of a polity, organisation or other type of Legal entity, entity and commonly determine how that entity is to be governed. When ...
and with it a revised court system. The district courts became appeals courts below the
State Supreme Court In the United States, a state supreme court (known by other names in some states) is the highest court in the state judiciary of a U.S. state. On matters of state law, the judgment of a state supreme court is considered final and binding in b ...
. To take over the district courts' original function, the county superior courts were created. The new Superior Court of Los Angeles County began with two judges: Ygnacio Sepulveda and Volney E. Howard. In 1905,
juvenile delinquency Juvenile delinquency, also known as juvenile offending, is the act of participating in unlawful behavior as a minor or individual younger than the statutory age of majority. In the United States of America, a juvenile delinquent is a person ...
and dependency hearings were put under the superior courts' jurisdiction, as were mental health hearing in 1914. Eventually, the superior courts' jurisdiction came to include all civil, felony criminal, family law, juvenile delinquency and dependency, and probate cases in its county. Throughout its history, the superior court had had a close relationship with the county's many municipal courts. By 1971, the superior court assumed responsibility for coordinating, providing and scheduling court interpreters for all courts in the County and by 1973 the Court had implemented a countywide system to process the payment of court-appointed attorneys. By 1974, all jury services in the county had been consolidated. In 1986, county-wide uniform criminal Local Court rules and uniform exhibit processing procedures were adopted to ensure consistency in how criminal cases were handled through the court system. By 1988, the Municipal and Superior Courts began to cross-assign cases to ease the county's judicial backlog. In 1993, the superior court adopted the municipal courts’ automated criminal case processing system; known as the Municipal Court Information, it was later rebranded the Trial Court Information System. Also in 1993, the superior court was administratively unified with several of the municipal courts. And by 1999, seventeen more municipal courts had joined. Finally on January 22, 2000, in accordance with
Proposition 220 In logic and linguistics, a proposition is the meaning of a declarative sentence (linguistics), sentence. In philosophy, "Meaning (philosophy), meaning" is understood to be a non-linguistic entity which is shared by all sentences with the same me ...
passed in 1998, the judges of the municipal and superior courts voted to merge into the Superior Court of California, County of Los Angeles. On November 14, 2012, Lee Smalley Edmon, presiding judge of the L.A. County Superior Court, announced the closing of ten courthouses, including those in
Beverly Hills Beverly Hills is a city located in Los Angeles County, California. A notable and historic suburb of Greater Los Angeles, it is in a wealthy area immediately southwest of the Hollywood Hills, approximately northwest of downtown Los Angeles. Bev ...
,
West Los Angeles West Los Angeles is an area within the city of Los Angeles, California. The residential and commercial neighborhood is divided by the Interstate 405 freeway, and each side is sometimes treated as a distinct neighborhood, mapped differently by di ...
, Malibu,
Huntington Park Huntington Park is a city in the Gateway Cities district of southeastern Los Angeles County, California. As of the 2010 census, the city had a total population of 58,114, of whom 97% are Hispanic/Latino and about half were born outside th ...
, Whittier, Pomona and San Pedro due to budget cuts. The Los Angeles Superior Court mission statement is "The Los Angeles Superior Court is dedicated to serving our community by providing equal access to justice through the fair, timely and efficient resolution of all cases"


Courthouses


General

* Alhambra Courthouse, First Street and Commonwealth Avenue * Airport Courthouse, 105 and 405 freeway intersection * Catalina Courthouse, Catalina Island, smallest, one part-time courtroom * Bellflower Courthouse * Beverly Hills Courthouse * Burbank Courthouse * Chatsworth Courthouse * Compton Courthouse * Downey Courthouse * East Los Angeles Courthouse * El Monte Courthouse * Glendale Courthouse * Governor
George Deukmejian Courken George Deukmejian Jr. (; June 6, 1928 – May 8, 2018) was an American politician who served as the 35th governor of California from 1983 to 1991. Of Armenian descent, Deukmejian was a member of the Republican Party and he also serve ...
Courthouse, Long Beach (opened September 2013) * Hollywood Courthouse * Huntington Park Courthouse * Inglewood Courthouse * Long Beach Courthouse (closed September 2013, demolished in 2016) * Malibu Courthouse * Metropolitan Courthouse, Los Angeles *
Michael D. Antonovich Michael Dennis Antonovich (born August 12, 1939) is an American politician who was Mayor of Los Angeles County and a member of the Los Angeles County Board of Supervisors. He represented the Fifth District, which covers northern Los Angeles Count ...
Antelope Valley Courthouse, Lancaster * Norwalk Courthouse * Pasadena Courthouse * Pomona Courthouse North * Pomona Courthouse South * Redondo Beach Courthouse * San Fernando Courthouse * San Pedro Courthouse * San Pedro Courthouse Annex * Santa Clarita Courthouse *
Santa Monica Courthouse The Santa Monica Courthouse is a government building in Santa Monica, California Santa Monica (; Spanish: ''Santa Mónica'') is a city in Los Angeles County, situated along Santa Monica Bay on California's South Coast. Santa Monica's 2020 ...
*Spring Street Courthouse * Stanley Mosk Courthouse, Downtown Los Angeles, 100 courtrooms, largest courthouse in the United States * Torrance Courthouse * Van Nuys Courthouse East * Van Nuys Courthouse West * West Covina Courthouse * West Los Angeles Courthouse * Whittier Courthouse


Small Claims

Only some courthouses have divisions for filings of small claims cases: * Bellflower Courthouse * Chatsworth Courthouse * Compton Courthouse * Governor
George Deukmejian Courken George Deukmejian Jr. (; June 6, 1928 – May 8, 2018) was an American politician who served as the 35th governor of California from 1983 to 1991. Of Armenian descent, Deukmejian was a member of the Republican Party and he also serve ...
Courthouse * Inglewood Courthouse * Michael D. Antonovich Antelope Valley Courthouse * Pasadena Courthouse * Santa Monica Courthouse * Stanley Mosk Courthouse * Van Nuys Courthouse East * West Covina Courthouse


Specialty

* Alfred J. McCourtney Juvenile Justice Center, Lancaster * Central Arraignment Court * Central Civil West Courthouse * Clara Shortridge Foltz Criminal Justice Center * David V. Kenyon Juvenile Justice Center * Eastlake Juvenile Court *
Edmund D. Edelman Children's Court Edmund D. Edelman Children's Court is a Los Angeles County Superior Court in Monterey Park, California, United States. This court handles all of the juvenile dependency cases in Los Angeles County Los Angeles County, officially the County o ...
, Monterey Park * Inglewood Juvenile Courthouse * Los Padrinos Juvenile Courthouse, Downey * Mental Health Courthouse * Sylmar Juvenile Courthouse


Administration

The court uses the California Court Case Management System (CCMS) v3, and exposes services to the public such as th
Criminal Defendant IndexCivil Party Name SearchCivil Case Document ImagesTraffic Ticket Online Servicese-File Small Claims
an
Divorce Judgment Documents
The difference between CCMS and these other services is similar to the difference between the federal
CM/ECF CM/ECF (Case Management/Electronic Case Files) is the case management and electronic court filing system for most of the United States federal courts. PACER, an acronym for ''Public Access to Court Electronic Records'', is an interface to the s ...
and PACER systems. The court has nearly 5,400 employees, operates nearly 600 courtrooms throughout the county, and has an annual budget of $850 million. The court has 2.7 million new cases each year: * 1.7 million traffic tickets * About 500,000 criminal cases * Nearly 120,000 family law cases * Over 150,000 civil lawsuits Pursuant to
California Government Code The California Codes are 29 legal codes enacted by the California State Legislature, which together form the general statutory law of California. The official Codes are maintained by the California Office of Legislative Counsel for the Legislature ...
and the
California Rules of Court California is a state in the Western United States, located along the Pacific Coast. With nearly 39.2million residents across a total area of approximately , it is the most populous U.S. state and the 3rd largest by area. It is also the mo ...
, the Los Angeles County Superior Court has adopte
Local Rules
for its government and the government of its officers. The Presiding Judge assigns cases to departments and judges to departments.Los Angeles Superior Court Local Rules § 2.1 Nominations and election of the Presiding and Assistant Presiding Judge are made by all judges and take place between September and October of each year.California Rules of Court § 10.602 All departments are divided into several principal divisions under the policy and procedures established by its supervising judge, subject to the approval of the Executive Committee and the Presiding Judge.


Officers

There are several
officers of the court In common law jurisdictions, the generic term officer of the court is applied to all those who, in some degree in the function of their professional or similar qualifications, have a part in the legal system. Officers of the court may include ent ...
, including judges, jurors, commissioners, prosecutors, defense attorneys, clerks, bailiffs, and court reporters.


Jurors

* 3.1 million of the county's residents are called for jury duty each year * 1 million people became qualified jurors * Between 7,000 and 10,000 people serve as jurors every day * Over 5,500 jury trials are held each year * Average length of a trial is about 7 days * $15 per day and 34 cents per miles (one way) compensation after the first day * 18 years of age or older, a citizen of the United States and a resident of Los Angeles County are minimum requirements


Judges

The state Judicial Council of California maintains a
official roster
of all superior court judges, including the 481 judges of the L.A. Superior Court. Median spending for a judicial office election for the Los Angeles County Superior Court has risen from $3,177 in 1970 to $70,000 in 1994. Notable judges have included: * John F. Aiso (1909–1987) *
William Atwell Cheney William is a male given name of Germanic languages, Germanic origin.Hanks, Hardcastle and Hodges, ''Oxford Dictionary of First Names'', Oxford University Press, 2nd edition, , p. 276. It became very popular in the English language after the Norm ...
* David S. Cunningham, III *
James Hahn James Kenneth Hahn (born July 3, 1950) is an American lawyer and politician. A Democrat, Hahn was elected the 40th mayor of Los Angeles in 2001. He served until 2005, at which time he was defeated in his bid for re-election. Prior to his term a ...
*
Shirley Hufstedler Shirley Ann Mount Hufstedler (August 24, 1925 – March 30, 2016) was an American attorney and judge who served as the first United States secretary of education from 1979 to 1981. She previously served as a United States circuit judge of the Uni ...
*
Lance Ito Lance Allan Ito (born August 2, 1950) is a retired American judge best known for presiding over the criminal trial for the O. J. Simpson murder case, held in the Los Angeles County Superior Court in 1995. Early life and career Ito was born ...
* Joyce Karlin * Mike Kellogg *
Carolyn Kuhl Carolyn Barbara Kuhl (born July 24, 1952) is a judge on the Superior Court of California for the County of Los Angeles and a former nominee to the United States Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit. After receiving her law degree in 1977 from D ...
, former Presiding Judge * Charles "Tim" McCoy *
Loren Miller Jr. Loren is a given name, nickname and surname which may refer to: Given name Men * Loren Acton (born 1936), American physicist and astronaut * Loren C. Ball (born 1948), amateur astronomer who has discovered more than 100 asteroids * Loren M. Berry ...
* Loren Miller (1903–1967) *
Billy G. Mills Billy G. Mills (born 1929) is a retired Los Angeles Superior Court judge and a former Los Angeles City Council member, serving from 1963 to 1974. He was one of the first three African-Americans elected to the council. Biography Mills was born ...
*
Lawrence Mira Lawrence Joseph Mira (born August 9, 1942) is an American lawyer and jurist who is currently serving as a judge for the Los Angeles County Superior Court. Known by some as "Judge to the Stars", Mira's name has been mentioned in numerous high-p ...
*
Brenda J. Penny Brenda J. Penny is an American judge on the Los Angeles County Superior Court. She was appointed in 2018 by then California Governor Jerry Brown and is best known for her role in overseeing Britney Spears's Britney Spears conservatorship dispute ...
* Kevin A. Ross * Michael T. Sauer * Robert Mitsuhiro Takasugi (1930–2009) *
Joseph Wapner Joseph Albert Wapner (November 15, 1919 – February 26, 2017) was an American Judge and Television Personality. He is best known as the first presiding judge of the ongoing reality court show ''The People's Court''. The court show's firs ...
*
Delbert Wong Delbert Wong (, May 17, 1920 – March 10, 2006) was the first judge in the continental United States of Chinese descent. Early life and education Delbert Wong was born in Hanford, California on May 17, 1920, and raised a short distance away in ...


Commissioners

A commissioner is a subordinate judicial officer elected by the judges of the court and given the power to hear and make decisions in certain kinds of legal matters, similar to a
United States magistrate judge In United States federal courts, magistrate judges are judges appointed to assist U.S. district court judges in the performance of their duties. Magistrate judges generally oversee first appearances of criminal defendants, set bail, and conduct ...
. Their jurisdiction includes, but is not limited to, traffic matters, family law and juvenile cases, criminal misdemeanors, and criminal felony cases through the preliminary hearing stage. There are 140 commissioners.


Prosecutors

The Los Angeles County District Attorney, currently
George Gascón George Gascón (born March 12, 1954) is an American attorney and former police officer who is the district attorney of Los Angeles County. A member of the Democratic Party and a former Republican, Gascón served as the district attorney of San ...
, prosecutes crimes before the court on behalf of California, Los Angeles County, and most cities and special districts within Los Angeles County. Several local city attorney's offices, including those of
Los Angeles Los Angeles ( ; es, Los Ángeles, link=no , ), often referred to by its initials L.A., is the largest city in the state of California and the second most populous city in the United States after New York City, as well as one of the world' ...
,
Santa Monica Santa Monica (; Spanish: ''Santa Mónica'') is a city in Los Angeles County, situated along Santa Monica Bay on California's South Coast. Santa Monica's 2020 U.S. Census population was 93,076. Santa Monica is a popular resort town, owing to ...
,
Pasadena Pasadena ( ) is a city in Los Angeles County, California, northeast of downtown Los Angeles. It is the most populous city and the primary cultural center of the San Gabriel Valley. Old Pasadena is the city's original commercial district. Its ...
,
Long Beach Long Beach is a city in Los Angeles County, California. It is the 42nd-most populous city in the United States, with a population of 466,742 as of 2020. A charter city, Long Beach is the seventh-most populous city in California. Incorporate ...
, Inglewood, and Burbank also prosecute misdemeanor crimes that occur within their respective city limits.


Defense attorneys

The
Los Angeles County Public Defender The Los Angeles County Public Defender's (LACPD) office is an agency of the government of Los Angeles County. LACPD was the first public defender agency in the United States. The current public defender is Ricardo García. It provides legal assi ...
's office staffs Los Angeles Superior Courts in criminal cases.
Los Angeles Dependency Lawyers Los Angeles Dependency Lawyers, Inc. (LADL) is a non-profit organization that represents parents in juvenile dependency proceedings in Los Angeles County. A dependency hearing is a court proceeding involving a child, typically in cases of parental ...
represent parents in juvenile dependency cases.


Clerks

The court clerks, or Judicial Assistants, are responsible for managing the courtrooms and other clerical courtroom activities, interacting with the attorneys and the public, administering oaths, assisting with the impaneling juries, and are responsible for the inventory and safe-keeping of the exhibits. The current Clerk is Sherri R. Carter.


Bailiffs

The functions of the
bailiff A bailiff (from Middle English baillif, Old French ''baillis'', ''bail'' "custody") is a manager, overseer or custodian – a legal officer to whom some degree of authority or jurisdiction is given. Bailiffs are of various kinds and their offi ...
are contracted out to the
Los Angeles County Sheriff's Department The Los Angeles County Sheriff's Department (LASD), officially the County of Los Angeles Sheriff's Department, is a law enforcement agency serving Los Angeles County, California. LASD is the largest sheriff's department in the United States a ...
, which is currently headed by Sheriff Alex Villanueva.


Notable cases

*
Los Angeles Times Bombing The ''Los Angeles Times'' bombing was the purposeful dynamite, dynamiting of the Times Mirror Square, ''Los Angeles Times'' Building in Los Angeles, California, United States, on October 1, 1910, by a trade union, union member belonging to the In ...
case (leading to the collapse of the labor movement in Los Angeles and the indictment of defense counsel
Clarence Darrow Clarence Seward Darrow (; April 18, 1857 – March 13, 1938) was an American lawyer who became famous in the early 20th century for his involvement in the Leopold and Loeb murder trial and the Scopes "Monkey" Trial. He was a leading member of t ...
for jury tampering) *
Hillside Strangler The Hillside Strangler, later the Hillside Stranglers, is the media epithet for one, later discovered to be two, American serial killers who terrorized Los Angeles, California, between October 1977 and February 1978, with the nicknames originating ...
*
Caryl Chessman Caryl Whittier Chessman (May 27, 1921 – May 2, 1960) was a convicted robber, kidnapper and serial rapist who was sentenced to death for a series of crimes committed in January 1948 in the Los Angeles area. Chessman was charged with 17 counts a ...
kidnapping and rape trial (and imposition of death penalty) * Stephanie Lazarus murder case * Charles Manson murders *
O. J. Simpson murder case ''The People of the State of California v. Orenthal James Simpson'' was a criminal trial in Los Angeles County Superior Court starting in 1994, in which O. J. Simpson, a former National Football League (NFL) player, broadcaster and actor, was ...
*
The Onion Field ''The Onion Field'' is a 1973 nonfiction book by Joseph Wambaugh, a sergeant for the Los Angeles Police Department, chronicling the kidnapping of two plainclothes LAPD officers by a pair of criminals during a traffic stop and the subsequent m ...
*
McMartin preschool trial The McMartin preschool trial was a day care sexual abuse case in the 1980s, prosecuted by the Los Angeles District Attorney Ira Reiner. Members of the McMartin family, who operated a preschool in Manhattan Beach, California, were charged with hu ...
* Phil Spector murder of Lana Clarkson * Lee Marvin palimony case * Trial of Conrad Murray (
Michael Jackson Michael Joseph Jackson (August 29, 1958 – June 25, 2009) was an American singer, songwriter, dancer, and philanthropist. Dubbed the "King of Pop", he is regarded as one of the most significant cultural figures of the 20th century. Over a ...
's last doctor) *
Britney Spears conservatorship dispute On February 1, 2008, American entertainer Britney Spears was involuntarily placed under a conservatorship by Judge Reva Goetz, with her father, James "Jamie" Spears, and attorney Andrew M. Wallet, as conservators. The conservatorship lasted u ...


See also

*
Superior Courts of California Superior courts in California are the state trial courts with general jurisdiction to hear and decide any civil or criminal action which is not specially designated to be heard in some other court or before a governmental agency. As mandated by t ...
**
Santa Clara County Superior Court The Superior Court of California for and in the County of Santa Clara is the state trial court in and for Santa Clara County, California. The Santa Clara Superior Court serves the public by providing equal justice for all in a fair, accessible, ...
**
Sacramento County Superior Court The Superior Court of California, County of Sacramento, alternatively called the Sacramento County Superior Court, is the California Superior Court located in Sacramento with jurisdiction over Sacramento County. Courthouses Gordon D. Schaber ...
** Alameda County Superior Court


References

*


External links

* {{Coord missing, Los Angeles County, California
Los Angeles Los Angeles ( ; es, Los Ángeles, link=no , ), often referred to by its initials L.A., is the largest city in the state of California and the second most populous city in the United States after New York City, as well as one of the world' ...
Buildings and structures in Downtown Los Angeles Civic Center, Los Angeles Government buildings in Los Angeles
Superior Court In common law systems, a superior court is a court of general jurisdiction over civil and criminal legal cases. A superior court is "superior" in relation to a court with limited jurisdiction (see small claims court), which is restricted to civil ...
Moderne architecture in California Stripped Classical architecture in the United States County courthouses in California