SAN DIEGO — We endorsed Brad A. Weinreb for Judge in Superior Court Office No. 25 during the primary election and he came in first of three candidates. Now, as the Nov, 4 runoff election for the open judicial seat nears, we’re proud to endorse him again in the race in which he is opposed by Ken Gosselin.
We had the opportunity to meet Weinreb because he is a fellow Jew, but what really impressed us about him is his tremendous respect–we’re tempted to call it “near reverence”–that he has for the law.
The judicial candidate, while growing up in Plano, Texas, had been active as a teenager in the B’nai B’rith Youth Organization and United Synagogue Youth, serving as the southwestern vice president for the USY. That district include Jews of Arizona, Texas, Oklahoma and Louisiana.
At the University of Texas, he was a member of Sigma Alpha Mu (SAM) fraternity, and after moving to California he and his former wife sent their children to JCC Summer Camp and to Camp Hess Kramer. Weinreb also worked with the Security and Safety Committee of the San Diego regional office of the Anti-Defamation League.
Weinreb is a deputy attorney general for the State of California and has won such endorsements as that of Sheriff Bill Gore and Henry Coker, San Diego County’s Chief Public Defender.Gore heads a department that arrests the people who become criminal defendants; Coker heads the office that defends them. They may not agree on what the outcome of many trials should be, but both men know who they’d like to see serving as the impartial judge — Brad Weinreb.
The candidate describes the role of a trial court judge as to make “credibility determinations based upon facts and to apply the law that exists.” Judges, he said, must be bound by ethics both on and off the bench and says “if we can elect or appoint a person on the bench who can maintain those principles and provide everyone access, then we can maintain the public trust in the judiciary and that is one of the things I think is the hallmark of the judicial system.”
In a column printed by San Diego Jewish World, Bradley recently called for the allocation of more money to the judiciary. He noted that courts in the South and East County have been consolidated with downtown courts, requring litigants to travel downtown form outlying areas of the county. Meanwhile, the civil case load per court has nearly tripled, resulting in long delays–often as long as eight months–before a case can even come to court. Simple traffic cases, he said, may take as long as seven months before they are litigated.
“Justice delayed is justice denied,” said the British parliamentarian William Gladstone. We should not delay our vote for Brad Weinreb.
—Donald H. Harrison, editor