The Lassen Superior Court

     The Lassen Superior Court is one of the fifty-eight subdivisions of the California trial courts and sits at the Lassen County seat of government, Susanville.  Historically, the courts in Lassen were comprised of several Justice Courts (courts of limited jurisdiction equal to that of municipal courts) and one Superior Court department.  The Justice Courts served subdivisions of the County and were located in Standish, Susanville, Westwood, Ravendale, and Bieber, and were presided over by lay judges. A process of consolidation began in the mid 1900’s with the Standish and Ravendale courts being merged into the Susanville court, and ended in 1976 with the merger of the Westwood and Bieber courts into the Susanville court, which then served the entire County.  In 1994 the name of the Justice Court was changed statewide, and all courts of limited jurisdiction were thereafter called Municipal Courts.

     In 1999, in order to achieve greater efficiency in the allocation of judicial resources and balance the work of the Courts, the two judges of the Lassen courts elected to unify the Superior and Municipal Courts into one general jurisdiction trial court for the County, the Superior Court.

     Currently, the Superior Court has two full-time judges in Departments One and Two, two part-time retired judges in Departments Five and Six, and a part-time Court Commissioner (a subordinate judicial officer) in Department Seven.  Department Three is designated for the occasional specially assigned judge to hear conflict matters, and the Department Four is the Appellate Division of the Court, over which a three-judge panel selected from the judges in the regional appellate division of Lassen, Plumas, Modoc and Sierra Counties presides on each case.

     Each Department of the Superior Court is assigned categories of cases, generally comprised of : Department One - Felony Trials, Civil Trials, Family Law, and Juvenile Law.  Department Two - Misdemeanor Trials, Limited Jurisdiction Civil Trials, Small Claims, Vehicle Code Violations, and Juvenile Dependency Law.  Department Four - Appeals from Limited Jurisdiction Judgments. Department Five - Prison Prosecution Felony Cases. Department Six - Civil Case Management Conferences and Settlement Conferences. Department Seven - Family Support Enforcement Actions.

     The regularly sitting and regularly assigned judges of the Superior Court are:
 

Presiding Superior Court Judge.

 Stephen D. Bradbury, born January 25, 1950 and raised in Susanville, California.  He is a 1976 graduate of the University of California, Hastings College of the Law. He, thereafter, became a member of the State Bar of California, and later was admitted to practice in the United States District Courts for the Northern District of California and Eastern District of California, and the United States Supreme Court. He engaged in the private practice of law and as a corporate counsel in Lassen County until 1986. In 1986 he was elected Judge of the Lassen County Justice Court, and in 1994 became the first Municipal Court Judge for Lassen.  In 1996 he was elected to the office of Judge of the Superior Court, and has been Presiding Judge of the court since January 1997. Beginning in 2004, he has annually been appointed the Presiding Judge of the Consolidated Appellate Division of Lassen, Modoc, Plumas, and Sierra Counties by the Chief Justice of California. Judge Bradbury served from 1992 to 2006 as a member of the faculty of the California Judicial College, held annually at the University of California, Berkeley, and since 2001 as a member of the faculty of the National Judicial College located at the University of Nevada, Reno. He was elected in 1999 to a three-year term on the Executive Board of the California Judges Association, and elected President of the California Judges Association for 2001-2002. Judge Bradbury served from 2002 to 2006 on the Executive Board of the U.C. Hastings College of the Law Alumni Association, and was an Advisory Member on the California Judicial Council in 2001-2002.  He sits in Department One of the Court.


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Superior Court Judge.           

F. Donald Sokol, born September 7, 1924, was raised in Maquoketa, Iowa and Yakima, Washington. He received a Doctorate of Jurisprudence Degree from the Leland Stanford University School of Law in 1950 and in 1951 became a member of the State Bar of California. He was admitted to practice in the United States Southern District of California in 1952 and in the United States District Court for the Eastern District of California in 1988. He was admitted to practice in the United States District Court of Veterans Appeals in 1991. In 1997 he was admitted to practice in the United States Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit. He engaged in the private practice of law in Stanislaus and Santa Barbara Counties until 1961 and in Lassen County from 1988 until 2006. He was a member of the Committee on the Administration of Justice of the State Bar of California for three years from October 1993 through October 1996. He was appointed Administrative Law Judge for Keyhea cases in 1998 and served as such through 2006. He was recognized by the Supreme Court of California and the State Bar of California in 2005 for 50 years of service as a member of the State Bar of California. In 2006 he was elected Superior Court Judge for Lassen County. He sits in Department Two of the Court.

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Assigned Retired Judge of the Superior Court.

Charles W. Hayden, born February 15, 1937, was raised in Lansing, Michigan. He is a 1965 graduate of University of California at Berkeley School of Law and became a member of the State Bar of California. He engaged in the private practice of law from 1966-1989, when he was appointed to the Municipal Court of Santa Clara County by the Governor of the State of California. Judge Hayden sat in numerous judicial assignments with the Santa Clara Municipal Court, becoming a Superior Court judge with court unification in 1998. He presided as a Santa Clara Superior Court judge over criminal court proceedings from 1998 until his retirement in 2005. Judge Hayden was appointed to the retired judge assignment program by the Chief Justice of California and has been regularly assigned to sit in Lassen Superior Court. He sits in Department Five of the Court.

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Court Commissioner.

     Stanley Dawson Arnold, born October 7, 1931 and raised in Susanville, California.  He is a graduate of the University of California, Hastings College of the Law, in 1960, and became a member of the State Bar of California. He was in private practice of law from 1961 to 1967, and was County Counsel for the County of Lassen from 1967 until his retirement in 1993.  The Presiding Judge appointed him as Commissioner of the Lassen Superior Court in 1999. He sits in Department Seven of the Court.

 Assigned Retired Judge of the Superior Court.

      

       John H. Darlington, retired assigned judge, was born November 22, 1944 in Des Moines, Iowa and raised in Southern California. He received his juris doctorate from the University of Loyola School of Law in 1969. He worked from 1970-1972 for the California Attorney General. He moved to Nevada City in 1972 to work for the Nevada County District Attorney. He was elected District Attorney in 1978 and appointed to the bench in 1989. He had numerous assignments and served as presiding judge for two terms. He retired in 2005 and was appointed to the assigned judges program. He current has a three-day-per-month assignment to the Lassen County Superior Court and sits in Department 6E.