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Kimberly Repecka
Kimberly Repecka is a judge of the Superior Court of Los Angeles County in California. She assumed office on January 6, 2025. Her current term ends on January 6, 2031.
Repecka won election for judge of the Superior Court of Los Angeles County in California outright in the primary on March 5, 2024, after the general election was canceled.
Repecka completed Ballotpedia's Candidate Connection survey in 2023. Click here to read the survey answers.
Biography
Kimberly Repecka was born in California. Repecka earned a bachelor's degree from Oberlin College in 2009 and a J.D. from Southwestern Law School in 2012. Her career experience includes working as a deputy public defender. Repecka has served as president of the Pasadena Women's Rugby Football Club, the Royals, and has been a member of the LA Public Defender's union, Local 148.[1]
Elections
2024
See also: Municipal elections in Los Angeles County, California (2024)
Nonpartisan primary election
Nonpartisan primary for Superior Court of Los Angeles County
Kimberly Repecka won election outright against incumbent Emily Theresa Spear in the primary for Superior Court of Los Angeles County on March 5, 2024.
Candidate | % | Votes | ||
| ✔ |  | Kimberly Repecka (Nonpartisan)  | 51.5 | 615,830 |
| Emily Theresa Spear (Nonpartisan) | 48.5 | 580,878 | ||
| Total votes: 1,196,708 | |||
| = candidate completed the Ballotpedia Candidate Connection survey. | ||||
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Endorsements
Ballotpedia did not identify endorsements for Repecka in this election.
Campaign themes
2024
Ballotpedia survey responses
See also: Ballotpedia's Candidate Connection
Kimberly Repecka completed Ballotpedia's Candidate Connection survey in 2023. The survey questions appear in bold and are followed by Repecka's responses. Candidates are asked three required questions for this survey, but they may answer additional optional questions as well.
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I previously worked in Children's Court. I first represented children who had been brought into the foster care system and later represented their parents and guardians. The primary goal under dependency law is to preserve and reunify families when possible and I have assisted many families in staying together or reunifying after treatment.
I believe strongly in the power of rehabilitation to improve the lives of those in treatment. It also creates a ripple effect that improves the lives of anyone that person comes into contact with. When we prioritize rehabilitation and restorative justice, we invest in everyone's future.- Care first, incarceration last. When we work to find solutions to fix social problems without jails and prisons, we learn how few problems are effectively solved with incarceration.
- Compassion and due process for all parties. In criminal cases, listen to what victims want while understanding what society needs and what the law requires. In all rulings, provide transparency by explaining the basis to parties.
- Integrity and work ethic. My rulings will be based on my honest and studied understanding of the law, not trying to manipulate a specific result or trying to benefit one side over the other.
Newer laws like mental health diversion provide us with much-needed opportunities to intervene when people require treatment, but the fact that so many people with mental illness and substance use disorders end up system-involved is a sign of a failure to adequately fund supportive social services.
Most of my clients qualify for MediCal as low-income. While there are few programs for clients with severe mental illness, there are virtually no programs for people who are housing unstable and who have moderate to mild mental illness without a co-occurring substance use disorder. This creates an unsustainable situation where a client who needed mental health support and a roof over their head but struggles to coordinate that care themselves is unable to get either and eventually ends up in crisis.
It is also true that some clients reject treatment, but most do not consistently do so. A person who chooses conviction and a time-served offer over waiting in custody for a program bed to become available isn't rejecting treatment: they're rejecting voluntarily staying in jail for the hope of possible treatment.
Overcoming addiction and treating mental health issues is challenging under the best of circumstances. Relapse is normal and not every treatment plan works for every client.
In children's court, the recommendation of the child's attorney is given more weight than any other. When I began in that role, I felt every bit of that weight: it was critically important that I got my recommendation right. I considered it my job to be the most informed person in the room. I did my own investigation on cases, including independently evaluating relative's or parent's homes when social workers did not. I spent extensive time building rapport with my clients. I didn't just read the holdings of important cases. I read the actual cases. I wrote briefs advocating for specific placements for my clients.
Once I became a parents' attorney, I brought that same fervor to the work. I wrote original motions, something rarely done in dependency court. I spent hours on the phone with clients, ensuring they understood the law that applied to their case--why their children had been taken and what they needed to do in order to get them back. I accompanied a parent to an interview with a social worker and learned about the manner in which they question parents. I conducted trainings for other attorneys.
As a public defender, I take a global view of each case every time. After consulting with the client regarding their goals and reviewing the evidence, I ask myself how the case should eventually resolve and what the barriers are to it resolving that way. I consult with the client again about our goal and our plan, then I work to remove all the barriers to resolution rather than just addressing the next step.
No one is perfect. Attorneys and judges make mistakes and, in some cases, the impact of those mistakes has the power to destroy lives.
1. To know the law and devote substantial time and resources to learning and staying updated on the law
Very few of the judges that I appeared before in dependency court had dependency backgrounds. I've also appeared in front of criminal court judges who have not practiced criminal law. This did not make them bad judges, but it is the responsibility of the judge to know the law and, in situations where the judge does not know the law, to learn it. Sometimes that will require briefing from the parties, and often it requires independent research, but in all cases it must be a commitment that spans their entire career because laws change. The learning process cannot stop.
2. To provide a forum where all parties with standing can be heard fully, fairly, and impartially
This is fundamental to due process and sound rulings.
3. To explain rulings to parties clearly and kindly so that they understand the basis, even they ultimately disagree with it
Judges serve the community. If a judge is ultimately correct on the law, but provides no basis for their ruling, then they do a disservice to their community. Laws are most effective when the people they govern understand them.
4. To maintain independence from any improper influences, including popular opinion or sympathy for one side or the other
While litigants might initially assume that a DA will be overly favorable to the prosecution or that a former defense attorney might be more favorable to other defense attorneys, judges must not be concerned with these assumptions. Members of the public sometimes disagree with the laws but a judge cannot allow that to influence rulings.
5. To conduct all matters with honesty and integrity
A few months after I started that job, I began working at Conquest paintball as a field referee, which required patience but also required the ability to react quickly and think on one's feet. Many of the participants would not immediately know or appreciate the risks associated with paintball and, though we would try to keep people safe while they enjoy their game time, in extreme cases players would get out of control or violate rules and need to be ejected. I kept both jobs while attending high school and participating in extracurriculars until I moved to Ohio to attend Oberlin College.
Themes of fate are woven throughout the book but it is Santiago who has to work towards his Personal Legend: not just his destiny, but the thing that will bring him deep personal fulfillment.
As years pass, this theme resonates with me more. We may envision a particular future or goal for ourselves but life throws up roadblocks. There may be times when those goals may look unreachable.
Most of the people in a courthouse on any given day do not want to be there. They aren't judges, attorneys, interpreters, reporters, bailiffs, court clerks or any other of the various staff who signed up to spend their days in Court. They are victims who never asked to be victimized. They are defendants that were ordered to appear or forcibly brought to Court. They are children who have been taken from their parents and they are the parents whose children have been taken, often hoping a judge will reunify them at Court. They are witnesses and jurors who were summoned. Every single one of them has somewhere else they would rather be, but their presence and participation is necessary for our judicial system to function.
Empathetic judges are aware of and work to actively reverse their own implicit biases.
It is easy to be on time to Court when you have a reserved parking spot, a reliable vehicle, and a support system for childcare. It is harder to get to Court when you need to request time off work (especially if that time off will be unpaid), rely on public transportation, accommodate a disability, or find childcare without support.
Because they are so used to coming to Court daily, attorneys who become judges sometimes overlook the burden of appearing for a court date, let alone appearing daily for an ongoing trial. Very few appreciate the anxiety and distress that parties carry just by being part of an ongoing open case.
Court is important, but it is not the only important matter in the lives of those who are ordered to appear. Judges should seek to accommodate parties when possible and continue to treat parties with kindness when accommodations are not possible.
https://cjp.ca.gov/wp-content/uploads/sites/40/2023/09/Spear_DO_Pub_Admon_9-6-2023.pdf
Voters deserve a judge that treats their colleagues and all litigants with respect, who doesn't need to be told that they need to be at work during work hours, and who most importantly is honest. The incumbent has not demonstrated those qualities since being in office.
Bench officers must also embrace the laws that have been passed by our legislature to reduce jail populations, provide greater support through social services, and combat implicit bias. Data has shown that spending more on jails and prisons has not made us safer, and that rehabilitation costs less and has better long term outcomes. We've learned that whether or not someone becomes system-impacted in the first place and what sentence they are ultimately given is affected by factors having to do with their socio-economic status and race.
Our legislature has responded by passing laws acknowledging the impact of implicit bias and racism in our justice system, including the Racial Justice Act and the codes that govern jury selection. They've passed laws for mental health diversion (and revised them to communicate to judges that they expect them to use them because they were being underutilized). They've passed judicial diversion laws for misdemeanors. They've passed laws to permit the dismissal of onerous enhancements, especially when those enhancements result in more than doubling the sentence of the actual crime.
Yet many judges, entrenched in the old way of doing things or concerned that they won't be perceived as "tough on crime" are not following the law. They choose appearances over efficacy.
Prior legislative work may provide a better grasp of legislative intent when applying the law, but legislative intent can also be researched through the records kept at the time the law was debated, revised, and ultimately passed. Prior experience in government may give a judicial officer greater insight into how a specific state agency or department operates, but a judge also should not make factual assumptions in cases based on information that is not being presented by the parties. For example, it would be improper for a prosecutor to assume the validity of a case filed by their former office because of assumptions about the filing process.
A candidate with political experience may be more capable of getting elected but that doesn't mean they are a better judge.
Someone who has been directly impacted by the judicial system, whether in the criminal system as a victim, witness, or suspect or in the civil system as a litigant, has valuable experience. They understand the barriers that exist for many people to participate in the process and what was required to overcome those barriers. They understand the anxiety that most people experience when coming to Court and may have opinions about whether the system was fair to them and what would make it more fair.
Susan Burton, Founder, A New Way of Life Re-entry Project and All of Us or None
Colonel Keith D. Bushey, Retired Colonel US Marine Corps, law enforcement officer, and foster parent: https://www.keithbushey.com
Greg Akili, Candidate for State Assembly District 57, labor union founder and community organizer: https://akili4thepeople.com
Note: Ballotpedia reserves the right to edit Candidate Connection survey responses. Any edits made by Ballotpedia will be clearly marked with [brackets] for the public. If the candidate disagrees with an edit, he or she may request the full removal of the survey response from Ballotpedia.org. Ballotpedia does not edit or correct typographical errors unless the candidate's campaign requests it.
See also
2024 Elections
External links
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Candidate Superior Court of Los Angeles County |
Personal |
Footnotes
- ↑ Information submitted to Ballotpedia through the Candidate Connection survey on December 19, 2023
Federal courts:
Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals • U.S. District Court: Central District of California, Eastern District of California, Northern District of California, Southern District of California • U.S. Bankruptcy Court: Central District of California, Eastern District of California, Northern District of California, Southern District of California
State courts:
California Supreme Court • California Courts of Appeal • California Superior Courts
State resources:
Courts in California • California judicial elections • Judicial selection in California
