State panel reprimands East Bay judge
California’s judicial disciplinary agency reprimanded Alameda County Superior Court Judge Frank Roesch on Thursday for taking sides and acting as an advocate in two cases in his court.
In both cases, Roesch “displayed a lack of the dispassionate neutrality and the courtesy to others that is expected of judges,” the Commission on Judicial Performance said in a 91 decision publicly admonishing the judge. The dissenter voted for a private admonishment.
Roesch, 73, was appointed to the bench in Oakland by Gov. Gray Davis in 2001 after many years as a civil litigator, including work for the Legal Aid Society of Alameda County. He had also served as president of La Raza Lawyers Association of California. His current term ends next year.
In the 2015 trial of a company’s suit against its insurers for denying coverage, the commission said a company lawyer was questioning an insurance executive when Roesch stepped in and repeatedly ordered the executive to
give yesorno answers to the lawyer’s questions. The judge later asked the witness if she knew she was testifying falsely, the commission said.
Roesch then called the lawyers to his chambers, said the witness had committed perjury and ordered her to return to the stand to assert her Fifth Amendment right against selfincrimination — contrary to the legal rules for such testimony, the commission said. The jury awarded $ 55.3 million in damages to the company, but a state appeals court overturned the verdict because of the judge’s treatment of the witness.
Roesch also presided over a 2017 case involving property that was sold to a trust fund by a person who was to have inherited the property in a will. After the original owner’s death, a trust fund representative went to court to confirm title to the property, but was questioned aggressively by the judge over payment of taxes, the commission said.
Roesch said he had formerly made his living as a lawyer writing wills, questioned the representative’s knowledge of tax laws and told the witness’ lawyer that it appeared the property transfer “had the effect of cheating somebody,” the commission said. He rejected the transfer of title but was overruled by the appeals court.
The commission noted that it had privately issued Roesch an “advisory letter,” a lesser disciplinary action, in 2011 for his treatment of a man who was an attorney in another state and represented himself in the judge’s court. Referring to the litigant’s delivery of a notice to another party in the case, Roesch said, “I can see why you don’t practice law ( in California). You don’t bother to read the law.” He later called one of the man’s questions “idiotic.”
Roesch can appeal the commission’s decision to the state Supreme Court. His lawyer could not be reached for comment.