Fire Aid for L.A. Judges Is Limited Under Ethics Rules on Gifts

The kinds of help the court can extend to the state judges and judicial officers whose homes have burned down in Los Angeles will be limited by ethics rules on accepting gifts, California Supreme Court Chief Justice Patricia Guerrero said.

However, support for affected trial and appellate court employees, including financial assistance, is under consideration, she said.

“Our heart goes out to them and we want to make sure that we’re there for them on a personal level,” Guerrero said Thursday during a conversation with media outlets.

Dozens of judges and staff have lost their homes, including at least 12 judicial officers and 12 staff members in L.A. superior court, and at least five judges and six staffers in L.A. federal court.

However, the state courts largely continued operations through the wildfires that have killed at least 25 residents and burned over 40,000 acres. L.A.'s trial court temporarily closed three of its 36 courthouses since fires began Jan. 7, but all were open by Monday.

Guerrero commended the efforts Thursday, saying that state court leaders had moved ahead with “minimal disruptions for the public.”

“I think the way they approached it was the right thing to do—to be open, and to have flexibility in terms of what happens when you go to court, when people can’t make it,” Guerrero said. “Of course, you make adjustments that are appropriate depending on the facts of any particular case.”

On Wednesday, the day before the conversation with Guerrero, fires burned for a ninth day and foot traffic at California Superior Court, Los Angeles County’s flagship civil courthouse, Stanley Mosk, was still significantly diminished from the 2,500 visitors it typically sees.

A security guard said since the fires started, he’s seen about half the usual visitors enter Stanley Mosk, which is roughly 15 miles from the heart of the Eaton fire and 20 from the Palisades.

The L.A. trial court’s move to press on with business has been controversial, with some employees, lawyers, jurors, and residents saying they feared missing evacuation notices as blazes burned uncontrolled.

The union representing L.A. public defenders on Jan. 9 called for broader closures, saying more flexibility was needed to respond to “such a fluid emergency.”

“It’s hard, because you will be criticized regardless of what you do,” Guerrero said.

Firefighters have largely been holding the line in both Eaton and Palisades fires, and some evacuation orders have lifted, but anxieties from renewed winds Tuesday and Wednesday and warnings of another wind event next week still hang in the city.

“I smelled the ashes and the smoke for the first couple days,” a man at Stanley Mosk said into his phone Wednesday, “but now we’re acting like it never happened.”

The man, a trial witness who asked to be unnamed to avoid impacting proceedings, said he missed work while waiting in court last week to testify.

But then several jurors didn’t show up to the third day of proceedings because of the fires. The court declared a mistrial and had to find a new set of jurors.

He was nervous, on his second round of a third trial day, that the same scenario would play out again.

It’s easy to see why he’d be worried, as signs of the fires were everywhere: The crowds of people waiting for elevators that typically fill the mouth of the first floor hallway were missing. Visitors and judges wore face masks to protect them from the smoke that still lingers outside. Light, tinted-yellow from the hazardous air on the other side of the glass, poured through the empty cafeteria windows.