Running for Los Angeles County Superior Court Office No. 131, we have public defenders Donna Tryfman and David Ross and Administrative Law Judges Troy Slaten and Dieter Carlos Dammeier (on the ballot as Carlos Dammeier). All candidates were rated “Qualified” by the LA County Bar Association, which means that, “the candidate must possess professional ability, experience, competence, integrity and temperament indicative of fitness to perform the judicial function satisfactorily.”
I recently spoke with Slaten and Dammeier about their aspirations for the Superior Court. I should immediately note that both of these candidates have been accused of questionable behavior – Slaten of using misleading titles and Dammeier of unethical practices, most notably while working as an attorney at his now-defunct law firm Lackie, Dammeier, McGill, and Ethir.
We will cover their responses to these accusations shortly, but before that, both candidates told me about how important public service is to them.
Slaten and Dammeier make their cases
Slaten began, “My parents really instilled in me from the very, very beginning the idea of service being the most important thing … I think I can have even a greater impact … and make sure that, like I did in traffic court or small claims, that the people who come before me, when they’re done and they’re walking out of that courtroom, they not only think, but they know that they were treated fairly with respect and they got a fair shot.”
Explained Dammeier, “You know, public service has always kind of drawn me in trying to help people as best I can. And it evolved as an attorney. I became a union attorney. So I was always fighting for the little guy trying to … And going to the Superior Court is kind of just a natural progression of my career.
They also both talked about how their bad experiences with judges have informed how important they believe judicial temperament to be with Slaten stating that judges with bad temperaments erode confidence in our institutions while Dammeier explained that he strives to make every litigant feel that they got a fair shake.
For the most part, both candidates seemed pleasant enough and roughly said the sorts of things you want to hear out of a potential judge. Slaten expressed to me the importance of understanding the profound impact that judicial actions have on the lives of the individuals that enter the courtroom.
“Family law matters where a judge is having to decide whether or not to rip a baby from its mother’s arms or something small, what may seem small to you and I in a small claims case,” Slaten said. “But it could mean whether or not a business is able to continue doing business because they’re owed $10,000 from somebody that’s not paying them or somebody’s health insurance is on the line in a worker’s comp case.”
Both candidates expressed frustration with trial penalties, but emphasized that plea bargains are necessary to keep the justice system afloat.
Dammeier spoke about striking a balance when it comes to choosing between punishment and reformation. “Everything’s got to be a case by case, I mean people make mistakes, right, especially younger people and if you have a younger person that’s made a bad judgment call that shouldn’t be the end of his life um obviously if we’re talking about some murder or something that gets to be a different story,” he said.
Would these sensible answers continue when we got to their alleged bad behavior?
Dammeier answers his critics
Starting with Dammeier, the alleged rapsheet against him is both comical and alarming. His law firm settled a lawsuit that alleged that the firm had hired someone to place a tracker on the Costa Mesa mayor’s car and the firm was also accused of orchestrating a fake DUI call on a council member to ruin their reputation. A police union president also testified that they hired his law firm to dig up dirt on two council members because of feared cuts to the police department.
Dammeier denied any wrongdoing and noted that none of the attorneys at the firm had been charged with any crimes.
“Well, the reality is nothing ever came back to any of the attorneys in the law firm. Something stuck with one of the private investigators that were hired to do a surveillance on somebody that a client wanted surveilled. But ultimately it was investigated by everybody under the sun … the state bar, the Orange County DA’s office, nobody ever did anything against the attorneys in the office and certainly not me.”
It’s hard to believe that he had no hand in any of the many allegations. About the lawsuit his firm settled for $607,500 for allegedly placing an illegal tracker on the mayor’s car, Dammeier added, “The case did get settled I agree but that was a decision by the, we had 22 attorneys in our firm at the time and we made a decision along with the insurance carrier to settle the case but it’s not because of any wrongdoing any attorneys did it was because we just wanted the case to be done.”
I also asked Dammeier about his law firm publishing an online guide to manipulating city officials. According to the OC Register, “the firm advised police unions to target city officials for unflattering publicity until that official pledged allegiance — then move on to the next one.”
“I certainly agree that’s a shady thing to do. The other thing is I didn’t do it. So, again, the firm I was in had 22 attorneys and we had five partners. So, um, that playbook was designed by one of the partners in the firm. It wasn’t designed by me. It wasn’t put online by me.”
I’ll note to the reader that Dammeier’s defense against wrongdoing is that neither he nor any of the partners were ever charged or convicted of a crime. Well, this “partner” who Dammeier alleges wrote the playbook was, like Dammeier, also never charged despite doing something extremely unethical.
Slaten answers his critics
The allegations against Slaten aren’t quite as slimy. Many of his numerous appearances on T.V. incorrectly described Slaten as a former prosecutor – in fact, he only interned at the DA’s office as a law student and tried a few cases under close supervision. The Metropolitan News-Enterprise, a popular source of legal news, have also criticized Slaten, who is only an administrative law judge, for a Facebook post claiming that he was “sworn in”, of using the honorific “Honorable” and provided several examples of Slaten falsely described as a prosecutor on his CVs or bios.
I found the Met-News’ critiques of Slaten’s use of the honorific and describing himself as being sworn in, to be unreasonable. Administrative law judges are called “Honorable” or “Your honor” in both court proceedings and on court documents.
“That’s what they call the judges that are newly sworn in. Congratulations to the honorable so-and-so. That’s what we are referred to every single day in my court.”
Administrative law judges are also sworn in: “I was sworn in. I take the same oath that a judge in the superior court takes. I take two oaths, one to the Constitution of the state of California and one to the United States Constitution.”
About his repeated use of the description of “prosecutor” or “former prosecutor”, I found the critique to be entirely warranted.
“I did hundreds of hits for the news, breaking down legal topics. They all have my bio. I said that I prosecuted cases as a clerk in the DA’s office … Maybe I could have corrected the anchor and said, well, I. I’m not, I wasn’t, I never said that I was a deputy district attorney, but I did work as a volunteer for the prosecution. I stood up in court and I tried cases on behalf of the people of the state of California … So I don’t know what else you call that other than prosecuting cases.”
Slaten doesn’t seem to be able to decide whether he should call himself a prosecutor or not. He first admitted that perhaps he should have corrected the hosts but then argued that his experience makes him a prosecutor. Whether clerking for the DA’s office as a law student and trying a few cases under the supervision of Deputy DAs counts as being a former prosecutor depends on the norms of the profession – the opinion of the profession appears to be unanimously against Slaten.
I read one of Slaten’s bios to him, “When I read something like ‘after graduation, attorney Slaten took a position with the Los Angeles district attorney’s office’ … the first thing that comes to mind is this person was a deputy district attorney or an assistant district attorney. So in your mind you don’t think that that’s a little misleading?” I also asked him about the other CVs and bios that straightforwardly describe him as a prosecutor.
Slaten restated that he clerked for the DA’s office and tried cases. Once again, that doesn’t make him a prosecutor and actual DAs seem to agree.
With respect to Slaten, overstating your credentials may seem relatively insignificant but a judge should not have such tendencies.
As for our other candidate, whether or not he was convicted of anything, “Dammeier” was second on the name of a law firm that was engaged in clearly unethical practices.
Taken together, there’s a good reason the Editorial Board for this paper chose to endorse Donna Tryfman.
Rafael Perez is a columnist for the Southern California News Group. You can reach him at rafaelperezocregister@gmail.com.