Governor Seeks Review of 3 Candidates for Supreme Court

Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger has sent the names of three candidates for his first appointment to the California Supreme Court to a state bar commission that screens judicial nominees, the San Francisco Chronicle reported Saturday.

They include two state Court of Appeal justices -- Carol A. Corrigan of San Francisco and Vance W. Raye of Sacramento -- and U.S. District Judge Morrison C. England Jr. of Sacramento, according to the Chronicle, which cited an unidentified source who insisted on anonymity because the governor has not made the names public.

Schwarzenegger spokeswoman Julie Soderlund said Saturday that the governor had submitted “a few” names to the state bar’s Commission on Judicial Nominees Evaluation during the week of Aug. 15, but she would not identify them.

The commission did not immediately respond to calls seeking comment Saturday.

The nominee would be slated for the slot held by Justice Janice Rogers Brown, who resigned in June after the U.S. Senate confirmed her nomination to a federal appeals court in Washington, D.C. Brown was the most conservative member of the California Supreme Court, which now has a 5-1 majority of Republican appointees.

Corrigan, 57, was an Alameda County prosecutor and a Municipal Court judge before Gov. Pete Wilson promoted her to the Superior Court in 1991 and to the state Court of Appeal in 1994.

Raye, 58, was a top legal advisor to Gov. George Deukmejian before the governor appointed him to the Sacramento County Superior Court in 1989 and to the state Court of Appeal in 1990.

England, 50, was a business attorney in Sacramento until Wilson appointed him to the Sacramento County Municipal Court in 1996 and to the Superior Court in 1997. President Bush appointed him to the U.S. District Court in 2002.