Four Qualified Candidates Vie for Los Angeles County Superior Court Seat in Unusual Judicial Race

Four attorneys with starkly divergent professional backgrounds — a former child actor, a veteran homicide defender, a police union lawyer turned unemployment appeals judge, and a longtime public defender who once worked as a television reporter — are competing for a seat on the Los Angeles County Superior Court. The Los Angeles County Bar Association has rated all four candidates as qualified, setting up a contest defined less by ideological division than by contrasting visions of what constitutes essential courtroom experience.

Unlike most California judicial races, where incumbents frequently run unopposed or challengers emerge from narrow legal niches, this field spans criminal defense, administrative law, juvenile supervision, and workers’ compensation adjudication. Voters evaluating the candidates must weigh whether deep trial litigation experience, administrative efficiency, or specialized supervisory background best serves a court system processing millions of cases annually across dozens of regional courthouses.

Donna Tryfman brings the most extensive direct criminal trial pedigree to the race. A deputy public defender in Los Angeles County since 1998, she currently works exclusively on homicides with special circumstances within the agency’s Major Crimes Unit. Special circumstance allegations in California elevate first-degree murder charges to potential sentences of life without parole or death, meaning Tryfman routinely handles the highest-stakes constitutional litigation in the state court system. Her background includes supervising 25 attorneys at Eastlake Juvenile Court between 2016 and 2019, participating in collaborative drug courts, and serving as a Superior Court judge pro tem for traffic and small claims matters. She led the Public Defenders Assn. as president for five years and received the Gideon Award as felony attorney of the year in 2025. Her stated priority centers on expanding digital access to the courts for underserved communities, a pressing issue as L.A. County continues modernizing its electronic filing and remote hearing infrastructure following pandemic-era mandates.

David Ross also built his career in indigent defense but approaches the bench from a broader geographic and institutional perspective. After working as a legislative aide for an Indiana member of Congress and spending time as a broadcast journalist and documentary producer, he became a lawyer in 1994. He spent five years as a deputy public defender in Riverside County before joining the Los Angeles County Alternate Public Defender’s office in 2000. Assigned to regional branches including Long Beach, Compton, and Torrance — where he has been based since 2018 — Ross states he has represented more than 10,000 defendants and completed over 110 jury trials. The alternate public defender’s office operates independently from the primary public defender, typically stepping in when conflicts of interest prevent the main office from representing co-defendants in the same case. Ross emphasizes ensuring litigants feel heard regardless of the outcome.

Carlos Dammeier represents a pivot from labor advocacy to administrative adjudication. His decade in law enforcement as a dispatcher, jailer, and police officer preceded a 25-year career representing police and public-sector unions in disputes ranging from administrative hearings to the U.S. Supreme Court. That practice faced intense scrutiny in 2013 when two Costa Mesa City Council members sued one of his clients, the city’s police union, over alleged aggressive legal and political tactics. The litigation contributed to the dissolution of his named-partner law firm, though Dammeier notes that subsequent investigations resulted in no disciplinary action or charges against the firm’s attorneys. Since 2022, he has served as an administrative law judge for the California Unemployment Insurance Appeals Board, issuing decisions in more than 2,000 unemployment, disability, and tax appeal cases. His path to the Superior Court has involved multiple attempts; he ran unsuccessfully for seats in Merced and San Bernardino counties in March 2024, following a prior San Bernardino campaign in 2016. He identifies clearing case backlogs as a primary objective.

Troy W. Slaten merges entertainment industry experience with two decades of legal practice. Known to television audiences from childhood roles on “Cagney and Lacey” and “Parker Lewis Can’t Lose,” he entered the legal profession in 2005. He began as a private criminal defense attorney before spending 11 years at an international law firm managing a criminal defense division and handling civil and administrative matters. He frequently appears as a legal analyst on television and in print media. From 2016 to 2020, he volunteered as a temporary Superior Court judge, known formally as a judge pro tem, before taking a full-time role in 2021 as an administrative law judge for the state Department of Industrial Relations presiding over workers’ compensation hearings. Like Dammeier, Slaten has tested the electoral waters previously, running unsuccessful Superior Court campaigns in 2020 and 2022. Outside the legal sphere, he announces and deejays UCLA men’s and women’s water polo games. He pledges to prioritize due process alongside timely case management.

California requires Superior Court judges to have been admitted to the State Bar for at least 10 years, a threshold all four candidates easily clear. However, the transition from administrative tribunals — such as the Unemployment Insurance Appeals Board or the Department of Industrial Relations — to a general jurisdiction trial court involves a significant shift in procedural rules, evidentiary standards, and the sheer volume of civil, family, and criminal dockets managed by L.A. County’s roughly 600 authorized judgeships. Conversely, candidates like Tryfman and Ross possess decades of daily Superior Court exposure but lack the specific administrative oversight experience their opponents cite as preparation for managing complex caseloads.

All four candidates secured the “Qualified” designation from the Los Angeles County Bar Association’s Judicial Elections Evaluation Committee, which assesses candidates based on temperament, industry, integrity, ability, experience, health, and moral character rather than political affiliation or ideology. The committee evaluates candidates through confidential questionnaires, peer reviews, and interviews before publishing its ratings ahead of the election.