Sneak Attack

A last-minute drive to defeat five of the 14 Court of Appeal justices up for confirmation here next Tuesday is a scurrilous and reprehensible effort to subvert the judiciary for political ends. The California Lincoln Clubs with financing from Supervisor Peter Schabarum have targeted five well-qualified justices in the second appellate district for defeat, and they are sending literature to Republican voters urging them to vote against all five.

The opponents of Steven J. Stone, Arthur Gilbert, Richard W. Abbe, Earl Johnson Jr. and Leon Thompson have no specific objection to their performance on the bench, and they do not cite any. They refuse to say why these justices should be denied confirmation.

But the reason is obvious. Removing these justices would open vacancies and enable Gov. George Deukmejian to appoint new judges, thereby giving his people majorities in the divisions in which these justices sit.

This is nothing but court-packing, pure and simple. The governor has distanced himself from this effort, but it is being waged by those who want to increase his control of the judiciary.

In an effort to disguise their cynical intent, the Lincoln Club cooked up a story about a panel of lawyers who reviewed the justices’ records, but they won’t name any of the lawyers who did the reviewing or disclose their reasons for opposing these five. If there are any reasons, the voters are entitled to hear them. We’d be most interested in their objections to these justices.

All five were appointed in 1982 by former Gov. Edmund G. Brown Jr. near the end of his Administration. They were highly rated by the bar and approved by Deukmejian, who was then a member of the judicial qualifications commission as attorney general. These justices have done good jobs, and there is no proper reason for them to be removed.

The strength of the judiciary as the third branch of government rests on its independence from politics. It is a gross distortion of the system to throw out able judges for political reasons. All 14 justices of the Court of Appeal who will be on the ballot in Los Angeles, Ventura, Santa Barbara and San Luis Obispo Counties should be confirmed.