Your feedback ensures we stay focused on the facts that matter to you most—take our survey.
Laurie Zelon
Laurie D. Zelon is a former associate justice of the Second District, Division Seven of the California Courts of Appeal, serving from 2003 to 2020. Governor Gray Davis (D) appointed her to the court in 2003, and she was retained by voters on November 7, 2006. She was retained again in 2010.[1][2][3] She retired on August 31, 2020.[4]
Education
Zelon graduated from Cornell University in 1974 and received her J.D. from Harvard Law School in 1977.[2]
Career
Zelon was in private practice from 1977 to 2000. For part of that time, she was a partner of Morrison & Foerster. In 2000, she was appointed to the Los Angeles Superior Court.[2][3] She served on the Second District, Division Seven of the California Courts of Appeal from 2003 to 2020.
Awards and associations
Awards
- 2010: Benjamin Aranda Access to Justice Award, Judicial Council, California Judges Association, State Bar, and California Commission on Access to Justice
- 2000: Inaugural Laurie D. Zelon Pro Bono Award, Pro Bono Institute of Washington, D.C.
- 2000: Loren Miller Legal Services Award, State Bar of California
- 1999: Charles Dorsey Award, National Legal Aid & Defenders Association
- 1993: William Reece Smith Jr. Special Services to Pro Bono Award[2]
Associations
- Los Angeles County Bar Association
- Member
- Past member, Board of Trustees
- Past chair, Federal Courts Committee
- Past chair, Judiciary Committee
- Past chair, Access to Justice Committee
- Past chair, Real Estate Litigation subsection
- Member
- Past chair, Standing Committee on Lawyers' Public Service Responsibility
- Former member, Consortium on Law and the Public
- Former chair, Law Firm Pro Bono Project
- Past chair, Standing Committee on Legal Aid and Indigent Defendants
- Member and past chair, California Commission on Access to Justice[2]
Elections
2010
- See also: California judicial elections, 2010
Zelon was retained in 2010 with 66.2% of the vote.[5]
Noteworthy cases
California man detained 17 years released under Mathews v. Eldridge precedent (2018)
A three-judge panel of the California Second District Court of Appeal ordered the release on September 12 of George Vasquez, a California man who had been detained for 17 years awaiting trial for commitment as a sexually violent predator, on the grounds that the state had violated Vasquez’s due process rights under the 14th Amendment. The panel consisted of judges Gail Ruderman Feuer, Dennis Perluss, and Laurie Zelon.[6]
Vasquez was convicted in 1995 of committing lewd acts on a child and served 12 years in state prison. Prior to his scheduled release in 2000, Los Angeles County prosecutors petitioned to have Vasquez committed to a state hospital as a sexually violent predator for two years. Instead, Vazquez’s hearing and trial dates were delayed for the next 17 years in order to allow for a series of six court-appointed attorneys to prepare for trial. Vasquez objected to the delays in his case in 2016.[6]
Superior Court Judge James N. Bianco dismissed the prosecutors’ petition in January 2018. Bianco argued that the breakdown in the state’s public defender system had violated Vasquez’s right to timely proceedings. The appellate panel later upheld Bianco’s decision, which was based in part on U.S. Supreme Court precedent concerning due process in the 1976 case Mathews v. Eldridge. The U.S. Supreme Court developed a three-part test in Mathews v. Eldridge for lower courts to apply when determining whether or not an individual has received due process during administrative proceedings. Courts must consider (1) the private interest at stake, (2) the effect on the private interest in the event of an erroneous determination as well as the value of any additional procedural safeguards, and (3) the government's interest, including the potential administrative burden of additional procedural safeguards.[6]
The California appellate panel applied the three-part Mathews v. Eldridge test in the context of Vasquez’s pre-trial delay pending an involuntary civil commitment. According to the test, the panel found that (1) detainment awaiting trial put Vasquez’s liberty at stake, (2) the length of Vasquez's detainment deprived him of his liberty, and (3) the government would not have suffered an additional administrative burden by going to trial in two years as opposed to delaying the trial for 17 years.[6][7]
Recent news
The link below is to the most recent stories in a Google news search for the terms California Second District Court of Appeals. These results are automatically generated from Google. Ballotpedia does not curate or endorse these articles.
See also
External links
Footnotes
- ↑ California Secretary of State: Justices of the California Courts of Appeal
- ↑ 2.0 2.1 2.2 2.3 2.4 Laurie Zelon biography
- ↑ 3.0 3.1 Profile from the League of Women Voters
- ↑ California Courts, "Justice Laurie Zelon to Retire from Second Appellate District," August 19, 2020
- ↑ California Secretary of State, November 2, 2010 Official Results
- ↑ 6.0 6.1 6.2 6.3 Courthouse News Service, "Man Held 17 Years Without Trial Ordered Free by Appellate Court," September 12, 2018
- ↑ SECOND APPELLATE DISTRICT DIVISION SEVEN, "THE SUPERIOR COURT OF LOS ANGELES COUNTY v. GEORGE VASQUEZ," September 12, 2018
