Gov. Brown appoints final 12 judges of his career

SACRAMENTO -- Gov. Jerry Brown on Wednesday appointed the final 12 superior court judges of his career, according to his administration.

The new names include nine women, putting an exclamation point on Brown's pledge to leave a judiciary that is less dominated by white men. It also includes four attorneys who have worked in public defender's offices, matching another Brown pledge.

The appointments came five days before Brown is to leave office on Jan. 7. On Thursday, he was scheduled to swear in his fourth and final justice on the California Supreme Court, Joshua Groban, his former judicial affairs secretary.

Groban was Brown's lead advisor in helping choose nearly 600 appellate and superior court judges, a third of the current state judiciary. These appointments were about half women and 40 percent non-white. Brown leaves behind a judiciary that looks far more like the state as a whole.

The name announced Wednesday best known to those in state political circles might be David Yaroslavsky, 36, appointed to the Los Angeles County Superior Court. He's the son of Zev Yaroslavsky, who retired in 2014 after a 40-year political career in which he served on the Los Angeles City Council and Los Angeles County Board of Supervisors. His mother, longtime community organizer Barbara Yaroslavsky, died of West Nile virus last week according to a spokesperson for the family.

The younger Yaroslavsky has been a Los Angeles County deputy district attorney since 2012 and worked as an associate at Latham & Watkins LLP for five years. He is one of five new members of the Los Angeles bench.

This includes two veteran deputy public defenders. Pamela M. Villanueva, 50, has been with the public defender's office since 1995. Maria Cavalluzzi, 55, has been managing attorney and a trial lawyer at the Law Offices of Cavalluzzi and Cavalluzzi since 2001 and also served 11 years as a deputy public defender.

Jennifer H. Cops, 41, has been a deputy district attorney since 2007. She was an associate at Lawrence, Beach, Allen and Choi from 2005 to 2007. Gail Killefer, 65, has been director of the Alternative Dispute Resolution Program at the U.S. Central District since 2010. From 2001 to 2010, she was a sole practitioner and adjunct professor at the UC Hastings College of the Law and an assistant U.S. attorney in the Northern District from 1989 to 2001.

The Alameda County court gets two new judges. Clifford T. Blakely Jr., 48, will leave the public defender's office. He also spent several years as a sole practitioner.

Karin S. Schwartz, 54, has been deputy director and chief counsel at the California Department of Public Health since 2013. She worked in several roles at the California Department of Justice in the decade before that and also was Supreme Court fellow at the National Association of Attorneys General in 2007.

The Contra Costa County bench gains John P. Devine, 53. He's been with the California Department of Justice since 2001, rising to supervising deputy attorney general in 2011.

Heather Mardel Jones, 41, will become a judge on the Fresno County Superior Court, where she has been a commissioner since 2014. She has prior experience as a private attorney, deputy U.S. attorney and deputy district attorney.

San Francisco County Superior Court will get Pillsbury & Coleman LLP partner Vedica Puri, 47. She's been with the firm since 2002. She is the first Indian-American judge appointed to the court.

Nicole L. Isger, 48, will join the Santa Clara County Superior Court after a career as a private attorney. Isger has been a sole practitioner since 2015. She's also worked in public defender's offices in Santa Clara and Contra Costa counties.

Terrye D. Davis, 63, will join the Solano County Superior Court after serving as a Contra Costa County court commissioner since 2016. Davis was a judge pro tem from 2009 to 2014.