A Los Angeles Superior Court judge has received a “severe” reprimand for sending text messages that the state Commission on Judicial Performance found were antithetical to her role as an impartial arbiter during the course of a murder trial.
Judge Emily J. Cole and her attorney, Paul S. Meyer, agreed to the public censure agreement in April, and the commission approved the provisions of the agreement on May 15, according to an order issued by the panel’s chairman, Michael Moodian.
“It is a basic requirement of judicial office to be a neutral and impartial arbiter of the facts and law,” Moodian’s May 28 order states. “Judge Cole’s conduct in sending text messages to her former colleague during a murder trial was antithetical to her role as judge.”
The discipline relates to Cole’s conduct during a murder retrial in the case of People v. Travis Rockhill in April of last year. Prior to the prosecution’s decision to rest its case, Cole sent text messages to a former colleague, deputy district attorney (DDA) Kevin Sexton, asking why another prosecutor had not called a rebuttal witness to testify.
“Judge Cole’s text implied that DDA (Yujin) Yi should call Deputy (Randy) Smalls (the judge’s bailiff) to testify and that someone in the district attorney’s office should convey the message to DDA Yi,” the commission’s order says.
Cole also attempted to minimize her actions and made false and misleading statements to a supervising judge and the commission about the text messages, according to the May 28 order.
“She attempted to put a thumb on the scales of justice, crossed the line from an impartial judicial officer to an advocate, and displayed neither neutrality nor wisdom,” Moodian said. “Her subsequent conduct, attempting to shade her initial misconduct in a more positive light in the court minutes and in her self-report to the commission, further reflects an initial reluctance to accept full responsibility for her misconduct, and an effort to minimize the gravity of her misconduct.”
Meyer, Cole’s counsel, said the judge deeply regrets her actions and has learned lessons from her “inappropriate communication.”
“She earned a reputation as an impartial jurist and is embarrassed by this isolated momentary lapse,” the attorney said in an email to the Southern California Record. “She took immediate responsibility and emphasizes that this will not happen again.”
Moodian’s order indicates that the censure is the harshest sanction that the commission can impose short of removing a jurist from the bench. The commission’s action serves to enforce high standards of judicial conduct and helps to maintain public confidence in the court system, the order says.
The order, however, acknowledged that Cole, who began her service as a judge in January 2021, had no prior disciplinary actions in her record, admitted misconduct to her supervising judge and cooperated in the investigation and resolution of the matter.
Cole disclosed the ex parte communication to the attorneys involved in the Rockhill case on May 15 of last year, and she subsequently recused herself. The defendant in that case had allegedly made an incriminating comment in the presence of Cole’s bailiff during the defendant’s first trial, and the bailiff became a potential witness in the second trial.