Local Elections : Judge Ralph Faces a Challenge and a Mystery in Her Reelection

After 12 years on the bench, Superior Court Judge Roberta Ralph is under attack, challenged for reelection by a candidate rated “well qualified” by the Los Angeles County Bar Assn., while the Bar rates Ralph as only “qualified.”

Bar officials, however, will not explain why they decided to downgrade Ralph from the “well qualified” rating they gave her when she first ran to “qualified” this time, and her opponent, Encino attorney Harvey A. Schneider, will not explain what, in his view, the judge has done or failed to do that merits her being replaced.

“It’s unseemly for a professional to say terrible things about a sitting judge,” Schneider said in an interview in his office this week. “We must dignify the position, if not the occupant.”

He said he would rather not be elected than explain what he finds objectionable in Judge Ralph.

But Ralph has a different point of view.

“If there’s some big thing he thinks I’ve done wrong, he has a duty to say what it is,” she said in an interview in her chambers.

The issues raised by the Ralph-Schneider race on next Tuesday’s ballot in some ways typify the difficulty with judicial election contests. Precise information as to what the issues are and how a judge has performed are hard for the public to come by. Even the Bar, despite its elaborate system of rating the contenders, will not explain the reasons for its ratings. And sometimes opponents claim to have inside information they will not make public.

In the Ralph-Schneider contest, Schneider, a former U.S. magistrate who has served on the Bar Assn.’s Ethics Committee, is better financed than the incumbent. He said this week that his name will appear on many of the slate mailings sent to voters in the last days before the election.

“I don’t see why a highly competent attorney cannot run on his own qualifications without slinging mud,” he said. “There are certain things I will not do” to win.

But why did Schneider choose Ralph to run against when there were 109 other incumbent Superior Court judges?

All he would say was that he had two criteria for choosing.

“First, I had to have appeared before the judge (as an attorney) and formed a very negative impression,” he said. “Second, I had to have had that impression confirmed by others in the legal profession.”

Ralph, however, said she finds this very peculiar. She said she had researched her records and could not find any indication that Schneider had appeared before her in the last five years.

Schneider, questioned about it, said that actually he had appeared before Ralph when she was conducting procedural “law and motion” hearings, which would have been at least seven years ago. There was “no extended contact,” he added, and since it was such a long time ago, he cannot remember the case.

“If he was there briefly and can’t remember the case, I think it’s extraordinary that he could have received such a bad impression that he decided now, years later, to run against me,” Ralph commented.

The judge was not challenged for reelec tion when her first term expired in 1982, a year after she left “law and motions.” This year, she has been endorsed by 42 fellow jurists, and she said she remains puzzled as to why the Bar Assn.’s evaluation committee decided to rate her only “qualified.”

She said she had appeared both before a subcommittee of the evaluation panel and later before the full 58-member committee and “they never gave me anything I could get my teeth into” as far as replying to charges against her.

“I asked for specifics,” she said. “I was not given any except in one case. They said I was inconsistent. They said I was slow. But they could not give me any specifics. In the one case where I was given a specific, it was a computer survey someone had prepared of the number of decisions I’d had reversed on appeal. It differed from the figures I had.”

Problem With Questionnaire

In addition to believing that she did not have a fair opportunity to defend herself before the panel, she said, “I had some problems with their initial questionnaire (sent to lawyers who had practiced before her, or knew her), because it permitted answers based on social friendship and hearsay.”

The head of the Bar Assn.’s evaluation committee, Howard L. Halm, contacted for comment, said that according to Bar procedures he was not free to discuss what had happened when Ralph appeared before the panel, or even to confirm that she had chosen to avail herself of the opportunity to appear before the full committee as well as the subcommittee.

Ralph said that when she did go before the full panel, she was early and Halm had met her and spent some time conversing with her.

“I can’t confirm that she appeared,” Halm said Thursday. Nor would he discuss any specifics as to why she had been rated “qualified” rather than “well qualified.”

“All of the candidates, including Judge Ralph, were given a very thorough and complete investigation,” he said. “The committee was extremely conscientious and did a good job, and that’s how it came up.”

He said that “qualified” means that in the Bar’s opinion Ralph is “fit to perform satisfactorily” on the bench, while “well qualified” means that it believes that Schneider has “superior fitness.”

Asked whether he believed that Schneider should say why he thinks Ralph ought to be replaced, Halm said: “I can’t comment on what’s ethical or unethical. All I can say is when you’re running in any election, it’s the usual case that you’d indicate why you feel you’re a better candidate.”