Panel Admonishes Judge on Conduct
Los Angeles Superior Court Judge John P. Shook was publicly admonished Thursday for appointing lawyers with whom he had financial and social ties to criminal cases in his courtroom in Torrance.
The state Commission on Judicial Performance took the action against the 60-year-old judge after he admitted steering the $100-an-hour appointments to certain criminal defense attorneys.
A public admonition is considered a relatively minor punishment in legal circles.
The commission said that between January 1989 and February 1996 Shook appointed lawyer Ben Sadler to represent defendants in about 50 cases. At the time, the commission said, Sadler was renting office space in a building owned by Shook and his wife.
During the same period, Shook appointed lawyer Robert Welbourn to represent defendants in 30 cases, according to the commission’s report. The report said that in April 1994, the judge told attorney Joel Oiknine that if Oiknine rented space in the Shook building, Shook would recommend him to the Southwest Indigent Defense Panel, which paid the legal fees for some of the defendants in Shook’s court.
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