News Scrapbook 1986-1988

Escondido, CA. (San Diego co.) Times Advocate (Cir. D. 32,685) (Cir. S. 34,568)

FEB 1 S\987

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8 II/Saturday, February 14, 1987 J S EGAN: Civil Rights Groups Wary of San Diegan's Court Nomination l. °> ss Continued from Pare 1

.Jl/len's P. c. 8

~~.g;i;t~~ Matters addressed included trial setting, motion~ to dismiss cases, and settle· ~m conferences. Before the project began, the Vista Superior Court had a system, still in place today, where the civil law an? moti?n judge wou!d issue tentative rulmgs on mot10ns by phone afte: reading legal briefs Lawyers interviewed said they like the use of phones for tentative rulings. If the losing side wants to present oral _ar8':1ments before the Judge, a heanng 1s scheduled on an upcoming Friday. While the project was under way, those oral arguments were handled by phone, if possible. Law- yers were given a specific time to be at their phones for a conference Simmons got survey responses from 16 of the 22 lawyers who par- ticipated in the Superior Court ex- periment. Of those who responded, 75 percent said they were either very satisfied or satisfied with tele- conferencing, as compared to per- sonal appearances, while about 19 percent were very dissatisfied. "Thus, while an overwhelming of teleconferencing, the minorities who disapprove ofit, do so intense- call with the judge. Eighty percent of the attorneys in federal cases who were surveyed said they were generally satisfied with teleconferencing. Estimates of the time lawyers saved by not going to superior court ranged from 15 minutes to three hours, with the average being one hour and 24 minutes. from both sides. ly," Simmons said.

!!!' hangups on ~ 1

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VISTA - Every Friday, rows of lawyers station themselves in advantage to courtroom seats here, sometimes waiting all morning for their t I f

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nine Western states, including Cal- 1forma. But liberal spokesmen and congress10nal staff members said this week that the nomination is hkely to draw intense scrutiny from the Senate Judiciary Commit- tee, wh1C'}:l came under Dl'mocratic control in January for the first time m the Reagan presidency. Sen. Patrick J. Leahy (D-Vt.), chairman of a four-member com- mittee task force set up to review judicial nominations, said Thursday that the panel intends to "play hardball" with nominees whose quabf1cat1ons or judicial tempera- ment appears questionable. No date has been set for Siegan's confmnation hearing, but an aide to Leahy aid he expects the nomina- tion of the 62-year-old scholar to attract opposition. Siegan, contacted Friday at his home in La Jolla, refused to com- ment on the controversy. In an interview last month with The Times, he said that his "primary obligation" as a circuit judge would be to "carry out the policies de- clared by the Supreme Court," even 1f they conflict with his own views. Congressional sources confirmed that an American Bar Assn. screening panel had rated Siegan "qualified"-the next-to-lowest of four ratings given to judicial candi- dates and the ranking most often given to Reagan's recent appellate court nominees. The liberal critics say they have only recently begun reviewing Sie- g,in's record. For now, most say their concern focuses on a report in a Washington-area legal publica- tion that iegan had criticized the Supreme Court's landmark 1954 ruling in Brown vs. Board of Edu- cation, which declared segregated schools unconstitutional. The story, in the Feb. 2 edition of Legal Times, said editors at the Cato Inslltute, a libertarian think tank, had excised references to the

e econ erenc1ng IS lot of time in terms of getting people together and hearing that we can save a • • · , ' ,

chance to argue over routine mo- tions in civil cases. While they kill time, their cli- ents' bills are mounting at an aver- age of $ll0 an hour. But Professor Robert Simmons of the University of San Diego Law Center th'fnks it's unfair for clienfs to pay so much for the few minutes W a the lawyer spends before the judge. - He wants to reduce the time wast-

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ey ave O Say· Superior Court Judge awrence apl O L K . 1 ff

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A year ago, he convinced Superi- -----------------------------

or Court Judge Lawrence Kapiloff, who supervised the civil law and motion department, to hold most pre-trial hearings with lawyers via conference calls on the phone. Simmons theorized that it would reduce the time lawyers waste traveling to the courthouse and waiting for other cases to be handled, thus saving substantial amounts of money for their clients. Reactions were generally posi- tive to the experiment, which is no longer being conducted, according to a report recently completed by He said Assemblywoman Lucy Killea, D-San Diego, and Assem- blyman Larry Stirling, R-La Mesa, have agreed to sponsor legislation that would make teleconferences mandatory in some types of court Simmons. A spokeswoman for Killea said the assemblywoman is "real posi- tive" about the concept of telecon- ferencing but won't make a definite commitment until she studies it more. Simmons hopes a bill on te- leennfo,encing will b, ,dopt,d this hearings.

to teleconferencing, Simmons said, is that "the curse of my profession is to regard with distrust any inno- In 1985, the Judicial Council of California recommended that each trial court adopt its own method of teleconferencing in civil hearings where no evidence is introduced. only two superior courts out of 58 in the state have done so. If state legislators don't impose pressure, he said, the teleconferen- Ol · trial courts with the speed of a vation." S mmons had hoped that San nate $30,000 to fund the project. Phone systems were installed in a federal courtroom in San Diego and in Judge Kapiloffs courtroom in Vista superior court to allow the judges to conduct conference calls with up to two lawyers. B,twoon F,bruo,y ,nd Ap,il of glacier." $14,000.

year and become effective in Janu-

ary 1988.

Kapiloff and North County law- yers interviewed generally had lukewarm feelings about holding hearings by phone. They said tele- conferencing was a good idea in theory, but they weren't sure they wanted to make it permanent. Jr. said, "Lawyers are trained, and by temperament, want to reach out personally. They feel they are more Simmons said that may be one reason for lawyers' objections, but he found two others that are less effective." law firms in San Diego explained project by pointing out that any "time savings achieved by telecon- ferencing would reduce his firm's billings and cost him money," Simmons said in his report. That- viewpoint was unfortu- nately fairly common, he added. Anotbe< ""on l,wym object altruistic.

Bernard Siegan's writings on school integration are at issue. 'I E

Escondido lawyer Bruce Jaques But Simmons' report stated that

David Boaz, co-editor of the book: said that the Cato Institute no longer has a copy of Siegan's original draft and that no one at the institute could recall ~f it made a rtirect reference to the Brown case. The liberal activisls say that, if Siegan in fact has questioned the legal underpinnings of the Brown decision-or if he is found to be ho tile, philosophically, to other widely accepted legal principles- his nomination will face tough sledding in the Senate. "Clearly, he's going ,o be ques- tioned closely about that and what that represents in terms of having mainstream constitutional views that are viewed as very fundamen- tal in our society, such as a commit- ment to equal justice under the law," said Melanne Verveer, public policy director of People for the American Way, a liberal lobbying

Brown case from Sie~an's chapter critiquing the Supreme Court in a 1985 book, "Beyond the Status Quo." As published, the ct apter-in an argument criticizing judicial ex- cesses-says decisions ordering the integration of schools represent "the most flagrant example" of the court's "usurp[ing] powers belong- ing to other governmental bodies." Siegan continues: "There is no fundamental or natural right lo an education, nor to an integrated education; each is a pohlical right created by government and is ac- cordingly not within the guaran- tees of the 14th Amendment." Like other writings by Siegan, the chapter argues for the "strict constructionist" view of• the Con- stitution, criticizing decisions pro- tecting women's right to have abortions and arguing for greater protection of unfettered economic conduct.

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c ,g concept "will move through majority of respondents approved

A partner in one of the largest Diego's major law firms would do- his refusal to donate money to the But he was only able to raise

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FEB 1 51987

El Cajon, CA (San Diego Co.) Daily Californian (Cir. D. 100,271)

J'l./lera's

P. C. B

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1888

1exa.:; tJ rasoM. "'"'4,rrJ Fo;Y"The Record .,, USD wins 10th straight . . ~e University of San Diego Paul Leonard scored 13 point"3/'i?,M; .• 54-42 in a West Coast won its 10th in a row by defeat.ing' . ary s . ht Athletic Conference basketball g~me,Saturdj t~g20-·4 It is the first The victory improved Sa2n0 Di~~sssi:~~he school joined Division time the Toreros have won ga lin 1978. r,. --~ / '

FEB 1 51987

San Diego, CA (San Diego Co.) San Diego Union (Cir. D. 217,089) (Cir. S. 341,840)

.Jllleri 's P. C. B.

es,. 1888

-USD - The U.,of San D'ie-go--'music d sched1;1led a v~ic ty recital featunng music by English com- posers at 4 p.m. Feb. 22 in Camino Theater at the U.S.D. t has ,

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Sunday, February 15, 1987 Singles champ of US event is a~tpld hand at comebacks

Miles Walker o"% hapman College won the top singles flight of the San Diego Intercollegiate Invitational tennis tournament yesterday at USD d~ea.ting Long Beach State's Kevin Gillette 7-6 (7-5), 7 1 -6 (7-3). Walker trailed by a service break in each set. He trailed in the first tiebreaker, 5-4, with Gillette serving. He trailed 5-2 in the second set and fought off four set points. But comebacks are nothing new for Walker, on or off the court. The 25-year-old from Healdsburg in Sonoma County started college seven years ago at Cal. With a juniors ranking of third in Northern California and 32nd in the nation, Walker joined the tennis team his sophomore year. "I wasn't doing all that well on the tennis team," said ~alker, who played No. 6 or 7 singles and No. 3 doubles. I was young, and they had a tennis team that was a little bit better than I had anticipated. School was tough too. It was a combination of the two." ' So Walker quit the tennis team. A year later, he quit college. "I really didn't expect to go back to school," he said. For th:ee years, he didn't. He worked part time teach- mg tenms and full time waiting tables in his older brother's restaurant. He didn't own a car, so he rode the bus or walked. Last spr(ng:, Walker decided to do what he had thought he_ woul_dn t. I really felt I wasn't accomplis any- thing with my work," he said. "I wanted to mak~ .,., sort of accomplishment. So I went back to school. He enrolled at the College of Marin and won the state community-college singles championship. He couldn t transfer back to a Division I school because of the NCAA's rule that allows an athlete five years (beginning w~e_n _h~ starts college) in which to use his four years of ehg1b1hty. But the rule only applies in Division I so he transfered to Division II power Chapman Coll~ge in Orange. There, he is eligible this season and next. S? fa~-, the serve-and~volleyer has been a big hit. He's 7-1 m smgles matches, including a 6-1, 7-6 decision over Pat ~mmet of Rollins College in Winter Park, Fla. At the time, Emmet was the No. 2-ranked player in Division II. Yesterday, Walker won the 32-draw tournament for

Local Tennis Mark Zeigler

Nob_ !·2 singles playits from 16 colleges, nine of them DIV1s1on I. He was su~posed to play in the second flight (for Nos. 3-4 players), but a teammate's inability to play due to a sore shoulder bumped Walker up. "I don't know what to expect, because I haven't played any of these players before," Walker said. "I go into the match trying to find out how they play, and I think that's why I fell behind so much." Three of his five mqtches went three sets. In the sec- ond round, he fought dff a match point before defeating USIU's Ro~rt Soneru 2-6, 7-6, 6-3. In the quarterfinals, Walker downed top-seeded Greg Failla of Long Beach State (and formerly Ramona High) 4-6, 6-4, 6-4. In the semis, he beat San Diego State's Julio Noriega 7-6 4-6 6- 0. ' ' "It's typical of me to fight," Walker said. "I'd just as soon win 6-2, 6-1, but it doesn't always work out that way." In tennis or in life. ADD TOU~~AM~NT - The San Diego Intercollegi- ate event 1s d1v1ded mto three singles and three doubles tournaments. There a~o are three singles consolation brackets. There are n~ official team matches, but USD coach Ed ~ollms keeps an unofficial team tally, award- "g two pomts for a victory in the main draw and one in the consolation. In the 16 years of its prestigious tournament USD never finished highe: than third - until this yea~. The Toreros, with 46 pomts, placed an impressive second behin~ Long Beach St?te (56). Chapman was third (33), San Diego State fourtl (27), USIU ninth (18) and UCSD 14th (3). Pepperdine, tlte pretournament favorite with- drew due to injuries ard illness. ' Leading the way foc the Toreros were junior Scott Patridge and freshman Dan Mattera, who won the sec- ond and third singles flights, respectively. Patridge the third seed in the bracket for Nos. 3-4 players didn't'lose a set in his five matcies and yesterday def~ated Long Beach State's Vince Horcasitas 6-3, 6-4. Mattera, seeded

The San Diego Union/Stan Honda USD's Dan Mattera is the winner of the brack~t for_ No. 5 and 6 singles players at the San Diego intercollegiate tournament. first in the Nos. 5-6 bracket, also beat a Long Beach player in the final, Drew Denny, 2-6, 6-3, 6-3. NOTES - A clinic designed for high school tennis coaches but open to the public will be held Saturday from 9 a.:11. to 1 p.m. at The Bishop's School in La Jolla. The ~ess1on will cover the nutritional as well as the techmcal aspects of the game ... Men's doubles teams from many of the top college teams in the nation will compete against strong independent twosomes at the 98th annual Pacific Coast Sectional Championships Feb. 27-March 1 at the La Jolla Beach and Tennis Club.

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Tri~lly Tennie Patron • Round Robin - Feb, 21-22. Woody Blocher Tennis Center. Boys' and girls' singles (beginning, Intermediate and ad- vanced) In 18, 16, 14, 12 divisions. Contact Glenda Hasselo at 729-2855 Harper Ink Memorial Tournament - Feb. 28 March , 7-8. Morley Field Boys' and girts' singles and doubles In 18, 16, 14, 12,' 10. contact Jea~ Kr~mm at 273-6401. (The 53rd annual tournament is for San Diego County residents only.)