LOS ANGELES COUNTY : ACLU Objects to Sheriff’s Dept. Plan

American Civil Liberties Union officials Thursday questioned anew last week’s approval by the Los Angeles County Board of Supervisors of oversight of the Sheriff’s Department by a panel of retired judges. The ACLU contended that even if expanded, the group of judges would not be representative of the county’s population.

In a letter to Supervisor Gloria Molina, the ACLU said that a check of all 265 retired federal, Superior Court and municipal judges, as well as court commissioners and administrative law judges, shows that only 10 on the list are women, and 78 of the 255 men are older than 80.

The average age of all retired male judges in the county is 75, the letter said. Two are 100 years old, 11 others are between 90 and 99, and 65 others are between 80 and 89, it said.

“It is impossible to manipulate this pool so that it has any similarity to the makeup (of the population) of Los Angeles County,” said the ACLU officials, who had previously noted that black, Latino and Asian men are also severely underrepresented.