Smooth Sailing for High Court Nominee : Appointment: Even opponents concede Gov. Deukmejian’s nomination of Marvin Baxter will be approved. Judicial commission starts hearing Tuesday.

Gov. George Deukmejian’s nomination of his former aide, Appellate Justice Marvin R. Baxter, to the California Supreme Court will draw little opposition when a state commission meets to consider the appointment Tuesday in Los Angeles.

The state Judicial Appointments Commission said Friday that six judges and lawyers are set to testify in support of Baxter, but that only one attorney has asked to speak against him. The absence of significant opposition appears to assure his confirmation.

Baxter, a member of the Court of Appeal in Fresno, served five years as Deukmejian’s appointments secretary, assisting in the selection of more than 600 judges in California. He was named by the governor last month to succeed Justice David N. Eagleson, another Deukmejian appointee, who is retiring from the high court in January. If approved by the commission, Baxter’s nomination will be placed on the November election ballot.

The nomination of Baxter had drawn a mixed response, with some critics accusing the governor of cronyism. Patience Milrod, one of a group of Fresno lawyers who opposed Baxter’s previous nomination to the appeals court, said Friday that further opposition would be “a waste of time.”

“There’s no expectation of keeping him off the court,” Milrod said. “The point still should be made that here is a person who may be perfectly adequate as an attorney and an appointments secretary--but, for God’s sake, this is the Supreme Court, you know?”

The list of witnesses supporting Baxter includes Appellate Justices Donald R. Franson and Hollis G. Best of Fresno; Superior Court Judge Judith Chirlin of Los Angeles; legal author Bernard E. Witkin of Berkeley; lawyer James E. Shekoyan of Fresno, and Michael J. Lightfoot, acting chair of a State Bar commission that reviewed Baxter’s nomination.

An appointments commission spokeswoman said a late addition to the witness list, San Francisco lawyer Gary Michael Coutin, would oppose the nomination on the grounds that Baxter had improperly served both as a judge and a member of the board of directors of Hastings College of the Law. Legal authorities have said Coutin’s novel claim is meritless.

On Tuesday, Baxter will face the three-member commission that includes Chief Justice Malcolm M. Lucas, state Atty. Gen. John K. Van de Kamp and Appellate Justice Lester W. Roth, the senior presiding justice of the state Courts of Appeal.

Commission members have rarely cast negative votes as they review nominations to the state Supreme Court and Courts of Appeal. No high court nominee has been rejected in recent history. However, Van de Kamp and Roth startled legal circles when they cast dissenting votes against two of Deukmejian’s recent nominations to the appeals court bench.

On Thursday, Van de Kamp voted against the appointment of Superior Court Judge George Nicholson to the Appellate Court in Sacramento. Van de Kamp, a Democrat, denied he opposed Nicholson, his Republican opponent for attorney general in 1982, on political grounds. Van de Kamp said Nicholson lacked “the qualifications, judgment, stability and the experience necessary for the job.”

Last month, 95-year-old Roth voted against the nomination of Superior Court Judge Miriam A. Vogel to the appeals court in Los Angeles. Vogel faced no serious opposition and drew no questions from Roth. When it came time to vote, Roth said no. “Judge Vogel is a brilliant trial lawyer but is not truly gifted with the desire or the faculties to expand in the judicial field,” he said.

Van de Kamp and Roth supported Deukmejian’s nomination of Baxter to the appeals court in Fresno in 1988. Van de Kamp joined other appointments commission members in approving Baxter. Roth was not on the commission--he sits only on nominations to the high court and the appeals court in Los Angeles but he joined a number of jurists and lawyers backing Baxter’s nomination, praising Baxter in a letter for his “solid integrity, thorough knowledge of the law and a more than usual capacity to absorb work.”

The prospective addition of Baxter is not expected to markedly alter the philosophical balance of the moderately conservative, seven-member high court. At the relatively young age of 50, Baxter can bring some badly needed stability to a panel plagued with unusually rapid turnover that legal authorities say has impaired the court’s productivity.