Panel Looks Into Judge’s Performance

A state agency began formal proceedings Wednesday to determine whether to force Los Angeles County Superior Court Judge Rodney E. Nelson off the bench because of a degenerative brain disease that the panel claims “seriously interferes” with his performance.

The state Commission on Judicial Performance, which has the sole authority to involuntarily retire a judge, did not detail the disease or its alleged consequences. But attorney Clarke Holland of Emeryville, Calif., said he had watched a steady but gradual decline in Nelson’s mental faculties during the course of a homeowners insurance coverage case the lawyer began litigating before the judge in 2001.

“In the last couple of years, he demonstrated to me a continuous decline in his ability to remember and concentrate,” Holland said in an interview Wednesday. “Ironically, his judicial demeanor never changed.”