Division Eight: PRESIDING JUSTICE CANDACE D. COOPER
Candace D. Cooper serves as Presiding Justice of Division Eight of the Second Appellate District. She was nominated for that position by Governor Gray Davis and confirmed on November 21, 2001. She serves with Associate Justices Laurence Rubin , Paul Boland and Madeline Flier. From November 9, 1999, Cooper previously served as an Associate Justice on Division Two, with Presiding Justice Roger Boren and Associate Justices Michael Nott and Kathryn Doi Todd.
Prior to joining the Court of Appeal, she served on the Los Angeles Superior Court from 1987 to 1999. During her tenure on the Superior Court she handled a variety of assignments; felony criminal trials, death penalty trial, juvenile dependency and delinquency and civil trials and master calendars. She had numerous administrative responsibilities; serving from 1997 to 1998 as the Supervising Judge of the West District/ Los Angeles Superior Court and Presiding Judge of the Santa Monica Municipal Court pursuant to a voluntary unification arrangement. She served the Court as Chair of the Personnel and Budget Committee from 1995 to 1996 and as one of the Court's representatives to the State Trial Court Budget Commission from 1997 to 1998.
Justice Cooper served on the Los Angeles Municipal Court from 1980 to 1987 where she served as Supervising Judge of the Traffic Court and of the Criminal Court and on the Court's executive committee. On the Municipal Court she handled long and/or complex felony preliminary hearings, including numerous high publicity cases.
In 1988 to 1989 she served as President of the California Judges Association; the second Black and second female to head a nearly 2000 member voluntary professional association representing all judicial officers throughout the state from the California Supreme Court to the remaining Justice Courts.
Active in judicial education, Justice Cooper has served as a faculty member for the Continuing Judicial Studies Program, the Judicial College and the New Judges Orientation. She has taught courses in evidence, jury selection, fairness and elimination of bias, and special problems in the justice system for women of color. She has also served on special boards and committees including: the Judicial Council Advisory Committee on Racial and Ethnic Bias in the Court, the Judicial Council Select Committee on Judicial Retirement, the Judicial Council Advisory Committee on Private Judges, the Attorney General's Committee on Child Victim Witnesses and the Judicial Council Task Force on the Quality of Justice and the State Bar Commission on the Future of the Legal Profession and, Chair of Judicial Council Task Force on Judicial Service. Since the fall of 2004, she has been a member of the California Judicial Council; the constitutionally created 27-member policymaking body of the California courts.
Justice Cooper has been the recipient of many awards and honors: including, Black Women Lawyers Association of Los Angeles Foundation, 2006 "Power of One" Award; Consumer Attorneys of Los Angeles, 2003 Roger Traynor Memorial Appellate Justice of the Year Award; Harriet Buhai Center for Family Law, Community Service Award (2001); California Women Lawyers, Justice Joan Dempsey Klein Distinguished Judge Award (1997); University Of Southern California Association of Black Law Alumni, Outstanding Achievement in the Legal Profession Award (1996); University Of Southern California General Alumni Association, Alumni Merit Award (1994); Los Angeles County Bar Association, Outstanding Trial Jurist (1992 -- 1993); Women Lawyers Association of Los Angeles, Ernestine Stalhut Award (1989); Los Angeles Y.W.C.A. Silver Achievement Award (1991).
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