New year to bring new leader to North County court

By: SCOTT MARSHALL - Staff Writer | Saturday, November 19, 2005 11:02 PM PST ∞

VISTA ---- When Marguerite "Marge" Wagner began practicing law, only a handful of women were attorneys in North County, women lawyers worked only in family law or probate law, and one judge prohibited women attorneys from wearing pantsuits in his courtroom, she said.

Nearly 30 years later, much has changed as Wagner ---- who stood and pointed out that she was wearing a pantsuit ---- prepares to become the supervising judge for the Superior Court's North County branch in Vista in 2006.

Wagner will become only the second woman to rise to that position, taking over for the first, Judge Joan Weber, who has served as the Superior Court's supervising judge in Vista for the last four years. Also in 2006, Judge Janis Sammartino will become only the second woman to serve as the presiding judge for the Superior Court countywide.

"I do appreciate the fact that things have changed substantially in the last 25 or 30 years for all of us," Wagner said.

Wagner, who was selected for the supervising judge position by Sammartino, said she had not thought about her role as a sign of the advances that women have made in the legal profession.

"We've gotten to a point where we don't think that way any more because we don't need to," Wagner said.

As supervising judge, Wagner's responsibilities will include helping determine courtroom assignments for judges, addressing personnel issues and responding to complaints about North County judges, except for family law judges, who fall under the supervision of Judge William Howatt in San Diego.

Wagner also will serve on the Superior Court's executive committee, which makes policy for the court countywide.

Praise for Wagner
Weber, who is looking forward to being able to do more trial work than she has as supervising judge, said she has "complete confidence" in Wagner taking on the leadership position. The North County court is "running very efficiently," trying more murder cases than the Superior Court's branch in downtown San Diego and handling as many civil and family law cases as other branches, Weber said.

"She (Wagner) is very highly regarded in this legal community with our colleagues on the bench and the bar," said Weber, who will remain in Vista as a trial judge.

A self-described "late bloomer," Wagner said she attended night school to obtain her law degree. Her husband at the time was an attorney in San Diego, so Wagner decided to begin practicing law in North County to establish herself professionally on her own, she said.

Janet Bledsoe Lacy, an Oceanside Unified School District trustee and an attorney who has known Wagner almost 30 years, said Wagner was only the third or fourth woman attorney to practice law in North County and was "an outstanding lawyer."

Wagner and Lacy said that decades ago, women had no options regarding the areas of law in which they practiced. Wagner was a family law attorney until 1989, when then-Gov. George Deukmejian appointed her to what was then the North County Municipal Court.

Wagner said her husband, Andy Wagner, who had become a judge before her, encouraged her to apply for the judgeship. She "hesitatingly" applied.

Her first year on the bench was difficult because it was in that year that her husband was diagnosed with cancer and died, she said.

The longer Wagner has been a judge, she said, the more she has enjoyed it.

Record of high-profile cases
In 1994, then-Gov. Pete Wilson appointed Wagner to the Superior Court, which later merged with the Municipal Court to create the one Superior Court that exists today.

Wagner has served as the supervising judge in the family law court in North County, but more recently has presided over several high-profile criminal trials, including the 2002 trial of Christopher Merrick, who was convicted of gross vehicular manslaughter for hitting and killing California Highway Patrol Officer Sean Nava while driving drunk; the 2003 retrial of Daniel Scott Whitlow, who was convicted of murdering an Encinitas couple in 1998; and the trial this year of Vinh Pham, who was convicted of raping his sister-in-law and murdering her boyfriend in 2003 in Escondido.

Attorneys who appeared before Wagner in some of those cases lauded her as a judge.

"She has outstanding interpersonal skills and brings a lot of trial experience to this job (supervising judge)," said Deputy District Attorney Paul Myers, the prosecutor in the Merrick and Whitlow cases. "We anticipate she's going to do an outstanding job."

Randy Grossman, the criminal defense attorney who represented Pham at his trial, said that case had many complexities, including problems with the translation of statements Pham was alleged to have made to police. Wagner took her time and carefully considered all of the legal briefs filed in the case, Grossman said.

"She's a very smart, thoughtful judge," Grossman said.

Away from the courtroom, Wagner is a mother, grandmother, world traveler and computer game enthusiast.

Lacy described Wagner as a "doting grandmother" who also is "very proud of her daughters," who are an intellectual property attorney and a preschool teacher.

Wagner has three grandchildren, two girls ages 9 and 3, and a nearly 2-year-old boy who she affectionately described as "a tank" because of the size of the clothes she bought for him recently.

There is no set term length for the supervising judge position. Recent supervising judges have stayed in the post for one to four years.

Contact staff writer Scott Marshall at (760) 631-6623 or smarshall@nctimes.com.