Office No. 28: Judith L. Meyer. An outstanding candidate, she was one of only two to be evaluated as "exceptionally well qualified" by the Los Angeles County Bar Assn.

Our recommendation is that you vote for those with the highest ratings in each of the eight contested offices.

Judge, Office No. 28: Judith L. Meyer, a prosecutor and professor, is rated exceptionally well qualified.

• Pasadena Star News

• San Gabriel Valley (SGV) Tribune

• Whittier Daily News

Guesswork is the wrong way to pick judges. Instead, rely on sound advice. And the best advice comes from the conclusions of the L.A. County Bar Association, whose 45-member evaluation committee this year spent several weeks interviewing candidates and ranking them as exceptionally well qualified, well qualified, qualified or not qualified.

Our recommendation is that you vote for those with the highest ratings in each of the eight contested offices.

Office No. 28: Judith L. Meyer, a prosecutor and professor, got the highest rating of exceptionally well qualified. There are two other candidates, one ranked qualified and the other not qualified.

Meyer is a prosecutor for the county and has received the endorsement of many, including [Los Angeles County District Attorney] Cooley, who said "[Meyer] would be a tremendous asset to the judicial system."

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We've picked the best qualified of these Los Angeles County office seekers, with the help of the region's bar association and personal interviews.

Office No. 28 -- The clear standout is Judith Meyer.

Meyer's enthusiasm in running for office suggests that as a judge, she would never settle for doing the minimum amount of work to get by. Instead, she would always go the extra mile to apply the law fairly. She has our endorsement.

Our recommendation is that you vote for those with the highest ratings in each of the eight contested offices.

Office No. 28: Judith L. Meyer, a prosecutor and professor, got the highest rating of exceptionally well qualified. There are two other candidates, one ranked qualified and the other not qualified.

The only non-incumbent in this year's eight contests to win the County Bar's new "exceptionally well qualified" rating, she boasts the potent "Criminal Prosecutor/Professor" designation and has been endorsed by the Los Angeles Times, which described her as "outstanding."

She also has the backing of Sheriff Lee Baca, District Attorney Steve Cooley, and about 40 active and retired judicial officers.

Our assessment of Meyer is not diminished. In fact, she is even better qualified now, having two more years of experience.

Our endorsement goes to Meyer, who is two years overdue for a judgeship.

Office No. 28: Judith L. Meyer was an impressive candidate when she ran for judge in 2004, but her opponent had the edge in experience. Meyer, a deputy district attorney with two additional years of prosecutorial and courtroom time, is the outstanding candidate in this three-person field.

Five Endorsed for Superior Court

We endorsed Los Angeles Deputy District Attorney Judith Levey Meyer when she was a candidate in the primary. We discerned then, as we do now, special qualities possessed by this candidate which render her right for the job.

Able and fair-minded, Meyer is a respected prosecutor.

. . . Meyer’s verve, commitment and astuteness are such that we foresee judicial service on her part of the highest caliber, and therefore unhesitatingly "re-endorse" her.

Judges vie in five offices

Pasadena Star-News, Whitter Daily News and
the San Gabriel Valley Tribune re-endorse
Criminal Prosecutor Judy Levey Meyer
for Los Angeles County Superior Court Judge, Office 69

In a tough race of five candidates, only two remain. And the top vote-getter, Judith Levey Meyer, was also our choice in March for the job. We stand by our recommendation and urge voters to cast their votes once again for Meyer.

Meyer has accumulated accolades as a prosecutor in the Torrance office of the District Attorney. Her experience, knowledge of the law and ability earned her the highest rating of "well qualified' from the county Bar. Recently, she gained conviction of a "three- strikes" rapist who was handed a sentence of 100 years to life.

On the other hand, her opponent, Donna Groman, herself a commissioner in Inglewood Juvenile Court, has a reputation of being soft on crime, according to her opponent and Rick De La Sota, head deputy of juvenile operations. De La Sota said Groman's experience is in dependency court and not in criminal courts. He said on two occasions, she has handed down soft sentences, even allowing defendants to be released who committed new crimes.

We join with D.A. Steve Cooley, who said Meyer "would be a tremendous asset to the judicial system" in endorsing Judith Levey Meyer for Superior Court Judge.

Endorsements for Superior Court

Torrance Daily Breeze re-endorses
Criminal Prosecutor Judy Levey Meyer
for Los Angeles County Superior Court Judge, Office 69

Office No. 69:

We again endorse prosecutor Judy Levey Meyer, who has spent a decade specializing in prosecuting sex crime offenders. Meyer is in a runoff against Superior Court Commissioner Donna Groman.

Meyer has worked in the D.A.'s Office in Torrance and has the support of many leaders in the South Bay, as well as police officers associations in Torrance, Gardena and Redondo Beach. Having also served as a temporary judge, Meyer has demonstrated the drive and determination to be a successful jurist.

San Gabriel Valley Tribune
Whittier Daily News
Pasadena Star News

San Gabriel Valley Tribune
Whittier Daily News
Pasadena Star News

Subject:

A 45-year-old man who wrote love letters to a 21-year-old woman working at a Redondo Beach coffee house has been convicted of stalking after he grabbed her, picked her up and tried to carry her away.

A day after Michael David Hranek's conviction, however, doctors and a judge determined him to be insane. Hranek will spend up to five years in a state hospital instead of prison, Deputy District Attorney Judith Levey Meyer said.

Subject:

Torrance Superior Court Case

Article:

A Los Angeles man convicted of dragging a woman off a Gardena street and raping her in his sport utility vehicle was sentenced Tuesday to 100 years to life in prison and was immediately tied to two other crimes.

Marquette Scott, 35, displayed no reaction as Torrance Superior Court Judge William Hollingsworth Jr. imposed the sentence, which was strengthened by California's three-strikes law. Scott has been in and out of prison since he was 13.

"This is a good day for the victim," Deputy District Attorney Judith Levey Meyer said. "This case was about the victim getting closure to a horrible event that happened to her."

Subject:

Torrance Superior Court Case

Article:

A woman who says she was raped twice inside a Torrance psychiatric hospital has filed a lawsuit, accusing the staff of failing to protect her from other patients.

The woman was held for three days last April in a locked ward of Del Amo Hospital, according to the lawsuit.

She claims one of the other patients in the ward, Bradley Guichard, raped her twice one night over the course of a few hours.

Guichard pleaded no contest earlier this year to two rape charges, court records show. He is serving an eight-year sentence in state prison, said Judith Levey Meyer, the deputy district attorney who prosecuted him.

Subject:

Torrance Superior Court Case

Article:

A previously convicted robber was sentenced to 85 years to life in prison for attacking the owners of a Torrance Chinese restaurant with a stun gun in an attempt to extort $10,000 from them, a prosecutor said Thursday.

Somsack Sam Sisangkhom, 35, received three "three-strikes" sentences plus 10 years for the Aug. 12, 2002, attack. His partner, Erica Mui Lu, 40, received a sentence of seven years, four months for her role in the crime, Deputy District Attorney Judith Levey Meyer said.

Torrance Superior Court Judge Dudley Gray on Wednesday imposed the maximum sentences on the couple, who were convicted in January of burglary and assault.

Jurors took less than two hours Monday to find a paroled robber guilty of pulling a woman off a Gardena street and raping her in his sport utility vehicle.

Marquette Scott, 28, of Los Angeles contended during his three- day trial in Torrance Superior Court that the encounter was consensual because she asked him to wear a condom.

"There was no doubt in anyone's mind that she was raped," said one female juror, a 49-year-old building manager from Torrance.

The jurors found Scott guilty of two counts of rape and one of robbery, crimes that could send him to prison for a minimum of 45 years to life. Based on his prior criminal record, Scott could receive multiple terms of 25 years to life in prison under California's three-strikes law.

Deputy District Attorney Judith Levey Meyer, who prosecuted the case, said Scott has been in and out of jail since he was 13.

Meyer asked that Winslow receive the 25-years-to-life sentence regularly handed down to repeat offenders because of the nature of the crimes, even though, as Borsari argued, Winslow has no prior criminal record.

The prosecutor cited the one-strike law in which the state Legislature allowed for the harsh sentence in such an instance. Here, the jury found true an allegation that Winslow kidnapped with the purpose of sodomizing the boy.

He also was convicted of committing lewd or lascivious acts on a child.

"This was atrocious behavior," Meyer said. "This is behavior that can't be condoned in any sense of the word."