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Staff Spotlight: An Interview with Ernie "Sterling" Norris, Judicial Watch-California Sterling "Ernie" Norris is a former Marine, a graduate of UCLA Law School, and was a Deputy District Attorney in Los Angeles County for 32 distinguished years. During those 32 years, Ernie headed the Special Trials Unit for 7 years, which handled the major high-profile cases of the entire county. He is now the head of Judicial Watch's Judicial Monitoring Project based in Judicial Watch's San Marino headquarters. JW Verdict: Throughout your career, you have fought tirelessly against corrupt judges and lawyers, but how did you become involved with Judicial Watch specifically? Sterling Norris: I initially learned of Judicial Watch through an attorney, Win Rainer. Win had been a strong supporter of Prop. 115, which was "The Crime Victim's Speedy Trial Initiative," and the effort to dump California Supreme Court Chief Justice Rose Bird. He described Judicial Watch to me as the "ACLU" of real justice. Going back through my history, I have always fought the court system to prevent it from distorting the intent of the law. This was, and continues to be, one of Judicial Watch's main goals as well. JW Verdict: The culprits in the distortion of the law are the judges who fail to follow the rule of law. Judicial Watch launched the Judicial Monitoring Project to address this problem. Tell our readers a little bit about how this program works. Sterling Norris: The Judicial Monitoring Project prevents governmental abuse by essentially two avenues. The first involves actual volunteer monitors who go into the state and federal courts to investigate the waste of judicial time and the overall judicial performance. The latter involves evaluating judicial temperament, knowledge of the law, bias, prejudice, and treatment of litigants and jurors. JW Verdict: What have these monitors discovered during the course of their investigations? Sterling Norris: The Monitoring Project has found that 80% of the federal courts are not working, as well as 70% of the state civil courts. JW Verdict: Given the abysmal condition of the court system, what remedies does the Judicial Monitoring Project offer? Sterling Norris: One of the main remedies is the removal of incompetent and corrupt judges. We submit trial transcripts of specific judges to the California Council on Judicial Performance with a view towards having them taken off the bench. JW Verdict: What examples of incompetence and/or corruption have your monitors discovered? Sterling Norris: Our monitors have found appalling incidents of abuse and corruption. For example, Superior Court Judge George W. Trammell forced a female defendant to have sex with him or he would sentence her husband to a lengthy prison term. This was a strong case with corroboration. The Los Angeles County District Attorney, for unknown reasons, would not prosecute him and the feds would not act. Judicial Watch wrote and contacted the Los Angeles County Grand Jury, the feds and public officials, laying out the case against Judge Trammell and urging prosecution. In our opinion, these actions caused sufficient pressure to force the feds to prosecute the judge, resulting in his being sent to federal prison for two years and losing his pension. Likewise, Judge Patrick Murphy was a Superior Court Judges who missed 400-plus days of work! The county judges and California's Council on Judicial Performance had taken no action. Again, Judicial Watch wrote and contacted the L.A. County Grand Jury, the Council on Judicial Performance, and public officials to demand that Judge Murphy be removed from the bench. Again, in our opinion, those actions caused the Council on Judicial Performance to remove Judge Murphy, although many hundreds of thousands of taxpayer-dollars too late. Both of these cases demonstrate Judicial Watch's motto: "No one is above the law." JW Verdict: What activities are on the horizon for Judicial Watch's Western Regional Headquarters? Sterling Norris: We have three major initiatives we hope to pursue. The first is to overturn Gov. Gray Davis's granting of California Driver's Licenses to illegal immigrants. Secondly, we have an effort underway to remove three California judges for releasing charged defendants on May 28, 2003 because the judges would not work past 4:30 p.m.! One of the charged defendants left the courtroom and later committed a capital murder. That would not have happened had the judges done their duty. Finally, we have a taxpayer lawsuit against the judges of Los Angeles County and the County Supervisors to recover over $100 million dollars in illegal and unconstitutional payments made to Los Angeles County judges. The County has been paying $36,000 extra to each judge over his/her state salary of $136,000. And, of course, we are also continuing to spearhead the effort to hold Hillary Clinton accountable for her campaign finance crimes. Clinton failed to report more than $2 million in contributions from JW client Peter Paul. Now that Peter Paul is finally back in the United States, we can push his case forward. Needless to say, the next year is sure to be exciting for Judicial Watch West.
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