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The Recorder
Joshua Groban, Brown's Fourth Nominee, Confirmed to California's High Court
Governor Jerry Brown’s fourth and final nominee for the California Supreme Court, Joshua Groban, has been confirmed by the state’s judicial appointments commission. The commission—Chief Justice Tani Cantil-Sakauye, Attorney General Xavier Becerra and First District Court of Appeal Justice Anthony Kline—voted unanimously to confirm Groban early Friday afternoon. Groban plans to take his oath of office from the governor Jan. 3, in time to be seated for the court’s January calendar. Groban has worked for Brown since 2010 when he started as chief legal adviser to the governor’s campaign. Within the Brown administration, Groban has had a lead role in recruiting and vetting about 600 trial court and appellate court nominees. At the confirmation hearing that preceded the commission’s vote, witnesses highlighted Groban’s efforts at recruiting and nominating judges to reflect the state’s diverse population. First District Court of Appeal Associate Justice Therese Stewart, who was appointed to the bench during Brown’s tenure, said Groban “proactively reached out” to bar groups representing women, Asian-Americans, African-Americans and LGBTQ lawyers. “He was not content to just review applications of the people who applied to the bench in the hopes that there would be an adequately diverse body of candidates,” Stewart said. “He took the mystery for them out of that black box” of the judicial nomination process.Groban will join three other Brown appointees he helped bring to the bench—Associate Justices Goodwin Liu, Mariano-Florentino Cuellar and Leondra Kruger—meaning Brown’s appointees will constitute a majority of the seven-justice bench. Like Brown’s most recent appointments to the Supreme Court, Groban has no judicial experience. That lack of prior trial court experience led Justice Kline to ask multiple witnesses testifying on Groban’s behalf to address concerns judges and practitioners might have about the lack of judicial experience.