WOODLAND — Yolo County’s two judicial candidates faced off publicly for the first time Thursday before their colleagues in the legal community.

A key issue of debate: Does one area of legal expertise better qualify a person for a seat on the judicial bench?

Yolo Superior Court Judge Daniel Maguire is being challenged by Deputy District Attorney Clint Parish for the Dept. 15 seat Maguire has held since January 2011. It marks the county’s first contested judicial election since 2008.

Hosted by the Yolo County Bar Association, the forum at the County Administration Building atrium gave both candidates an opportunity to outline their platforms and take questions from the audience composed of dozens of local attorneys and judges.

Parish, 40, says recent judicial retirements have resulted in shortage of criminal-law experience on the Yolo County bench that he can help restore, having prosecuted more than 1,000 criminal cases and 55 trials over the past decade.

“There is a void there,” Parish said. He cited AB 109, California’s prison realignment law, which as of October has called for felons convicted of nonviolent, nonserious and nonsexual crimes to serve their time in county jails that are ill-equipped to handle them.

“Because of that, a judge’s discretion is even more important,” Parish said. “I’ve got a baseline of what a case is worth.”

But Maguire noted that, if elected, Parish would be prohibited from handling criminal cases for at least a couple of years in order to avoid conflicts of interest.

“Judges … have to be generalists, especially in a county like ours,” where members of the 10-judge bench may be asked to cover for their colleagues in criminal, civil, probate, family law and other matters, said Maguire, whose background includes 17 years of civil law practice.

“I don’t think it’s right to pick one area of law and say, ‘This is the important one,’ ” he said.

Maguire, 45, touted his impartiality, a quality he hinted Parish might lack as a “zealous advocate” for victims of crime. He also highlighted the rigorous 18-month vetting process he underwent prior earning Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger’s appointment to the bench in 2010.

“I think it’s appropriate, given the power that judges have,” he said.

Parish has referred to Maguire’s appointment as political in nature, a critique he repeated at Thursday’s forum.

“It is time for Yolo County to elect our judicial branch,” he said.

Audience questions focused on the candidates’ legal expertise, strengths and weaknesses and their stances on California’s “three strikes” law. Neither one took expressed an opinion of the sentencing law but agreed that their jobs require them to follow and apply it as necessary.

Maguire acknowledged his lack of criminal-law experience — felony prosecutions in particular — but pointed out that his background includes a federal law clerkship, misdemeanor trials in his work for a Denver city attorney, as well as numerous civil-law trials.

“Law is the law, and evidence is the evidence,” he said.

Similarly called out for his lack of civil-law experience, Parish said while he currently isn’t well-versed on the issue, he would strive to be if elected.

“It’s the same thing throughout the law — find the law and apply the facts to it,” Parish said. “That’s exactly what I would do.”

Yolo County Bar Association members will be surveyed as to whether the association should endorse one of the two candidates.

Election Day is June 5.

— Reach Lauren Keene at [email protected] or (530) 747-8048. Follow her on Twitter @laurenkeene

Comments

comments