Passing Judgment on the Judge

Who and what is Tammy Bruce? A self-serving activist whose comments are suited to her own agenda (“Peers Defend Jurist’s Custody Ruling,” Feb. 8).

I appear regularly in front of Judge Nancy Wieben Stock on complicated felony cases representing defendants. She regularly denies more of my requests than she grants. Am I happy with that? No. But every time I’ve been in her court, my clients and I have been treated fairly and politely and her rulings have been well-reasoned, even if I disagree.

If I don’t agree with her, I go to the Court of Appeal, not to the street corner shouting, “Off with her head.”

Every day in the county, judges make “calls” that one side or the other doesn’t like. That’s why they’re called judges. Their decisions aren’t always popular.

Judge Wieben Stock is articulate, intelligent, fair, caring and courageous. She follows the law even if that upsets one side or another. There isn’t any right-thinking person who doesn’t sympathize with the families of Nicole Brown Simpson or Ron Goldman or disdain spouse abuse. But that isn’t the issue. Yes, let’s recall someone. Recall Tammy Bruce to Los Angeles. Sadly, it’s extremists like her who, in their zeal to promote their own agendas, undermine many worthy causes.

STEPHAN A. DESALES, Fullerton

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Orange County Superior Court Judge Nancy Wieben Stock ruled a mother was “high risk” but nevertheless granted her joint custody of her two children. Wieben Stock stated that this mother demonstrated “emotionality” and “instability” and could be a risk to the youngsters.

The youngsters are now dead, shot to death by the mother.

Wieben Stock is the same judge who granted O.J. Simpson permanent custody of his children last December. Her rationale? That the Browns had “failed to demonstrate clear and convincing evidence that being in Simpson’s custody would be harmful to his children.” Simpson is a wife batterer--perhaps worse. Shame on you, Judge Wieben Stock!

These children should be placed with their maternal grandparents, where they will have love, stability and a chance to stay out of the O.J. spotlight.

It can be argued that Judge Nancy Wieben Stock has blood on her hands just like the woman who killed her two children. She potentially could have more because of her Simpson decision. This judge should be recalled for her ill-conceived rulings.

MICKEY POWELL, Huntington Beach

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Orange County Superior Court Judge David Carter calls Judge Nancy Wieben Stock “ethical and competent.” I think otherwise.

Ethics, according to the law, is defined as moral action. Moral action refers to moral law, which is the law of conscience. The law of conscience is defined as the aggregate of all rules of ethics which relate to right conduct. In effect, the law of ethics is subordinate to the law of conscience, which is the moral sense able to distinguish between right and wrong.

Judge Wieben Stock’s decision to return Sydney and Justin to their father, O.J. Simpson, is neither moral nor right, based on either the law or on moral grounds. Her decision to return the Kyle children to their mother, evidently based on her ethical perceptions, was not moral, given the mother’s emotional instability. Nor, again, was it right.

Judge Wieben Stock is having difficulty distinguishing between right and wrong, which is the very heart of ethical conduct. Therefore, Judge Carter is in error when he calls her “one of the most ethical . . . judges of the court.”

PATRICIA K. GAUNT, Tustin

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Re “Orange County Voices” column by Michelle A. Reinglass, Feb. 16: There is something drastically wrong when four “psychological experts” would return children back to an unfit parent. All their young lives were spent in a dysfunctional environment with an insanely jealous father who took his frustrations of inadequacy out by beating and abusing their mother. When she finally found the courage to get them safely away, look what happened to her.

Children growing up under these circumstances are surely psychologically crippled and in need of a normal, loving and secure home with their maternal grandparents.

HAZEL GURLEY, Garden Grove