Posted on 01/04/2006 5:22:48 PM PST by NormsRevenge
SAN FRANCISCO (AP) - Appellate Judge Carol A. Corrigan, a former prosecutor, was sworn in Wednesday to the California Supreme Court after being confirmed to replace the most conservative justice on the state's highest court.
Corrigan, 57, who sits on the 1st District Court of Appeal in San Francisco, is a former trial judge and Alameda County prosecutor who was elevated to the appeals court in 1994 by former Republican Gov. Pete Wilson after changing her voter registration from Democrat to Republican.
Corrigan, who graduated from Hastings College of the Law in 1975, was unanimously approved by the Commission on Judicial Appointments.
The white Catholic and Stockton native was selected by Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger to succeed Janice Rogers Brown, the seven-member court's most conservative judge, and only black member. Brown resigned June 30 after the U.S. Senate confirmed her to a federal appeals court in the District of Columbia.
Corrigan becomes the court's 112th justice.
California's top court nominees do not need approval by lawmakers, but require two of three votes from a commission composed of Chief Justice Ronald M. George, a Republican; Attorney General Bill Lockyer, a Democrat; and 2nd District Court of Appeal Justice Joan Dempsey Klein, a Democrat.
Several former colleagues from the Alameda County district attorney's office spoke on her behalf. She faced only one question from the panel when Lockyer asked her to name her favorite U.S. Supreme Court justice.
"I can't claim to know all of them so I would be hesitant to pick one," she said.
Corrigan's first case, to be heard Tuesday, is one of the highest profile on the docket since the 2005-2006 term began in September.
The case concerns whether the city of Berkeley can refuse to provide free berthing at the Berkeley Marina to the Sea Scouts, a nonprofit group affiliated with the Boy Scouts. The city provides free docking to nonprofit groups, but won't offer it to the scouts because it allegedly discriminates against gays. The scouts maintains Berkeley is discriminating against them.
The Supreme Court could be asked to decide whether it's unconstitutional to bar lesbians and gays from getting married. Other cases include whether Indian tribes, the state's biggest monetary donors to politicians, are bound by state campaign disclosure rules.
The last vacancy on the court that is the final arbiter of California law disputes, was filled in 2001 by Carlos Moreno, the court's only Democrat and Hispanic. He replaced the late Justice Stanley Mosk.
With Corrigan's confirmation, the court will consist of two white men, a Hispanic man, an Asian man, an Asian woman, and two white woman.
Court watchers said Corrigan was a moderate conservative.
On abortion, Corrigan joined an opinion in 1997 that reversed the convictions of several protesters at a Vallejo abortion clinic on the grounds prosecutors did not prove they were part of a raucous group barred from picketing outside the clinic.
In one of her most noted decisions, Corrigan ruled in 2001 that local governments can seize vehicles from suspects dealing drugs or soliciting prostitutes. That same year, she reversed a sexual assault conviction in Contra Costa County on grounds that a prosecution expert guided the jury to the conclusion that the defendant "was guilty because he fit the profile."
In February, she joined an opinion that upheld a Department of Motor Vehicles rule suspending driving privileges for motorists who decline an alcohol test.
In 2002, Corrigan upheld a lower court order throwing out a $2.86 million verdict in favor of a Sobrante Elementary School fifth-grade girl shot in the chest by a 13-year-old boy while walking home from school in 1997. The school didn't notify her parents it had sent her home because she had head lice.
"School employees cannot personally supervise each student every moment of each school day," Corrigan wrote.
What the heck is a "moderate conservative"?
Corrigan herself has described herself as a "centrist", the same term she used to describe Sandra Day O'Connor.
http://www.latimes.com/news/local/la-me-supreme10dec10,0,4828953.story?coll=la-home-headlines
"I think I would probably be a centrist anyplace I found myself," she said. "I was a moderate Democrat, and now I am a moderate Republican…. I am moderate on virtually all things."
She said she particularly admires U.S. Supreme Court Justice Sandra Day O'Connor, whom she called a centrist.
But what about Joyce L. Kennard? Is she any better?
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