Husband Joins Wife on Bench of State Court of Appeal

The 2nd District Court of Appeal added another Vogel on Tuesday, creating what may be the only husband-wife team of justices to sit on a California appellate court bench.

“As far as we know, this is the first time in California that a husband and wife have sat together on the appellate court,” Justice Miriam Vogel said after her husband, attorney Charles S. Vogel, was sworn in to the $113,632-a-year post.

She said her husband’s appointment creates no potential for conflict because they will be assigned to “totally separate divisions.”

Charles Vogel will sit in the court’s four-justice Division 4, succeeding Justice Ronald M. George, who has been named to the state Supreme Court. Miriam Vogel serves in the appellate court’s Division 1.

Both Vogels were once Los Angeles Superior Court judges, and Charles Vogel, 60, was president of the State Bar of California in 1990-91. Gov. George Deukmejian appointed Miriam Vogel, who presided over a series of Superior Court battles involving Proposition 103’s insurance reforms, to the appellate bench in 1990.

California Chief Justice Malcolm M. Lucas administered the oath of office to Charles Vogel in the Ronald Reagan State Office Building on Tuesday after a public hearing before the state Commission on Judicial Appointments, punctuated by exchanges that left the crowded courtroom rocking with laughter.

After several witnesses lauded Vogel for his intelligence, insight, leadership, independence, generosity, public spiritedness, Lucas asked him if he had any comments.

“I have no intention of impeaching the witnesses who have appeared,” Vogel quipped. “I am prepared to stipulate to their testimony.”

Lucas, Atty. Gen. Daniel E. Lungren and appellate court Justice Joan Dempsey Klein, sitting as the Commission on Judicial Appointments, unanimously confirmed Vogel’s nomination Tuesday.

Before the vote, however, Lucas mischievously told Vogel that “familial equity cries out for one negative vote,” a reference to appellate Justice Lester W. Roth’s vote against Miriam Vogel at her confirmation hearing.

Lucas promised Vogel a “monosyllabic” swearing-in with no long phrases that they would stumble over, and the chief justice was as good as his word for a brief moment.

“I, Charles S.,” Lucas began and stopped, waiting for Vogel to respond. After breaking up the audience, he abandoned his joke for a more serious tone.

Serving on the 2nd District bench is a return of sorts for Vogel, who filled in there as a justice pro tem in the 1970s. The 2nd District covers Los Angeles, Ventura, Santa Barbara and San Luis Obispo counties.