Senator Urges Clinton to Name Manella to Bench

Sen. Dianne Feinstein (D-Calif.) on Wednesday recommended to President Clinton that he appoint U.S. Atty. Nora Manella to a seat on the federal District Court in Los Angeles.

Separately, the Clinton administration has begun FBI background checks in preparation for nominating federal District Judge Kim M. Wardlaw for a seat on the U.S. 9th Circuit Court of Appeals--the appellate panel with jurisdiction over California and eight other Western states.

Clinton placed Wardlaw on the District Court bench only two years ago. Before taking the bench, Wardlaw was a litigator at O’Melveny & Myers, one of the city’s largest law firms, and she is married to William Wardlaw, Mayor Richard Riordan’s closest political advisor.

Although her tenure as a district judge has been brief, Wardlaw, 43, has handled several high-profile cases and has drawn considerable praise from lawyers who have appeared before her. As a result, her nomination, if Clinton goes ahead with it, is likely to go relatively smoothly--a plus for the administration, given the large number of appeals court nominations now stalled in the Senate.

In her letter to Clinton, Feinstein said she was “completely confident that Nora Manella will be a top-notch federal judge.”

The senator said that Manella, 46, had a strong track record as both a prosecutor and as a jurist, having served as a Municipal Court and Superior Court judge in Los Angeles, where she presided over both civil and criminal cases.

During Manella’s tenure as U.S. attorney, she has supervised successful prosecutions of former Arizona Gov. Fife Symington, a Republican; former U.S. Rep. Walter Tucker (D-Compton); former Compton City Councilwoman Patricia Moore, a Democrat, and U.S. Rep. Jay C. Kim (R-Diamond Bar).

Her office also secured convictions of a dozen members of the Mexican Mafia and garnered the first federal civil rights conviction of an Immigration and Naturalization Service agent for beating an illegal immigrant. Moreover, the office has recovered hundreds of millions in civil fraud cases, including $82 million from Litton Industries in one case brought under the federal False Claims Act.

Bill Chandler, Feinstein’s chief aide in California, said he anticipated that Manella, who has been the region’s top federal prosecutor for four years, would not encounter any significant problems during the confirmation process.

The recommendation that she be nominated drew praise from attorneys and judges alike, including W. Matthew Byrne Jr., the chief judge of the U.S. District Court here, who said Manella would be “an excellent appointment.”

“This is absolutely fabulous--the best choice the senator could have made,” said Laurie Levenson, associate dean of Loyola Law School, who served with Manella in the U.S. attorney’s office here in the 1980s. “Nora exemplifies the best in lawyers: She is smart and ethical.”

The recommendation also was praised by Jan Handzlik, a former federal prosecutor who heads the American Bar Assn.’s West Coast white collar crime committee, and Steven E. Zipperstein, who was Manella’s chief assistant in the U.S. attorney’s office and is now West Coast regional counsel for GTE Corp.

“As U.S. attorney, Nora has aggressively investigated and prosecuted government fraud and public corruption cases, and has spearheaded an expansion of white-collar crime prosecutions,” Handzlik said.

For her part, Manella said, “It’s an honor to be recommended. I am gratified by the faith Sen. Feinstein placed in me four years ago [when she recommended Manella for the U.S. attorney position] and again today.”

A Los Angeles native, Manella graduated with honors from Wellesley College and USC Law School, where she was an editor on the law review. Immediately afterward, Manella served as a law clerk to one of the nation’s most respected federal appeals court judges, John Minor Wisdom of New Orleans.

She also worked on the Senate Judiciary Committee staff and was briefly in private practice with O’Melveny & Myers before serving as an assistant U.S. attorney in Los Angeles, where she headed the office’s appellate unit.

If confirmed by the Senate, Manella would take the spot of veteran District Judge Marianna Pfaelzer, who took senior status in December. Two other Los Angeles lawyers--Margaret Morrow and Howard Matz--and Superior Court Judge Carlos Moreno already have been nominated to fill three other vacancies on the court. Several more vacancies are expected this year as other judges who are about to turn 65 will be eligible to take senior status.