Perren Nomination

We have the governor appointing Judge Steven Perren as one of four nominees to fill a vacancy on our state high court. Perren was responsible for the management of the Ventura County juvenile justice court system and helped in the building of a juvenile facility and youth court in El Rio.

Is this what it takes to be an appellate court justice, much less a state high court nominee? Is it fair to assume that Perren had someone with big bucks and/or clout do some heavy lifting and behind-the-scenes maneuvering to have him appointed?

How else out of hundreds of superbly qualified judges and practitioners with excellent academic credentials and outstanding trial experience did the governor choose him. What have we come to when our local press fawns on such a mediocre appointment and fails its readers by not giving us a true investigative report on how this appointment came about?

Has he made any rulings on complex cases that were considered outstanding? Has any of his appellate opinions been considered models of clarity? There are two local law schools in Santa Barbara and Ventura counties. Have the deans and faculty of these schools rated him? Have the deans at Stanford and UC Berkeley rated him? In the interests of full disclosure, should Perren divulge his back channel to the governor that in short order he was promoted from obscure trial judge to the local appeals court and now as a nominee to the state Supreme Court, all in less than three years? This smells of back-room dealing and politicking at its worst.

Debra St. Germain

Thousand Oaks

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