Judge Erica Yew of San Jose; apologist for California Judicial Commission

The state of California presented Nanci E. Nishimura with a law license in 1991 after she graduated from the University of California Hastings Law School.

In 2010, Former Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger was duped into appointing Nanci as a member of the California Judicial Commission. Erica didn’t get the appointment because she was the most qualified attorney in the San Jose area. She got it because he had proven to be a reliable lackey for the local political hacks.

In one matter, Erica and the Judicial Commission had the chutzpah to file a lawsuit against California State Auditor Elaine Howle and her agency for having the audacity to perform an audit of the Judicial Commission.

Erica and the Judicial Commission asked a San Francisco Superior Court judge to restrict the scope of Ms. Howle’s audit. The Commission had the audacity to claim that the legislatively mandated audit, would threaten the confidentiality of the Commission’s investigations and violate the separation of powers doctrine.

In response to the Commission’s asinine argument,Ms. Howle said in part:

• The auditor has reviewed “highly confidential” documents held by other agencies, including some in the judicial branch without disclosing any contents publicly.

Myron Moskovitz of the Moskovitz Appellate Team wrote on Ms. Howle’s behalf:

• “The auditor regularly audits state agencies established by the Constitution, and never has an audit intruded on the ‘core functions’ of those agencies.”
• “None of these agencies has ever challenged, by lawsuit or other means, the auditor’s authority to conduct an audit or claimed the separation of powers doctrine prevents the auditor from informing the public about the agency’s performance.”

The auditor’s investigation will focus on how the judicial commission determines the credibility of evidence and will evaluate how the agency reviews complaints about judges who commit legal errors.

The commission laughably challenged the audit, by asserting that the commission could not afford the review’s estimated cost of $500,000 without significant layoffs. However, the auditor, in court filings, stated that she had no authority to charge the Judicial Commission for the costs of the audit and has no intention in doing so.

The sad truth is that this Sham Commission is not in the business of ferreting out incompetent, dishonest or unethical judges. For the most part it is in the business of acting as a protection racket to allow said judges to remain on the bench regardless of the adverse impact they have on the sea of victims they cheerfully leave in their wake.

Proof positive of this Commission’s unwillingness to remove a Judicial Misfit from our midst, is their decision to not remove Sacramento Superior Court judge Peter McBrien who was found criminally guilty of ordering the cutting down trees on public property to improve his view of the American River. For this criminal conduct, the enablers for Judicial Misfits sitting on the Commission punished Peter by gifting him with a complimentary reprimand.

In truth, Erica and her fellow commission members have a vested interest in assuring that the public remains ignorant of the manner wherein they consistently and cheerfully give the proverbial wink and a nod to judicial misconduct and/or judicial incompetence.

Subsequently, McBrien was found guilty by the Commission of setting out to personally harm Mr. Ulf Carlson in a divorce case for having the temerity to question McBrien’s conduct. For destroying Mr. Carlson’s 19-year job with the State of California by causing him to be unjustly fired, McBrien received another complimentary reprimand.

Hopefully, the trial judge in San Francisco will have the courage to tell Erica and the Commission to take a hike and dismiss its sham lawsuit.

As we speak (ca. December 2016), Erica continues to sit as a Santa Clara County Superior Court judge in San Jose, California.