Sergio C. Tapia II
Template:TOCnestleft Sergio C. Tapia II is a Superior Court of Los Angeles County California Office 68. He was appointed by Gov. Jerry Brown (D) on December 5, 2013, to replace retired judge Jan Greenberg Levine. Tapia ran unopposed for a full term in 2016, winning election automatically.
Education
- Bachelor's University of California, Berkeley
- Law University of Iowa College of Law[1]
Career
- 2013-Present: Judge, Superior Court of Los Angeles County
- 2001-2013: Senior trial attorney and deputy alternate public defender, Los Angeles County Alternate Public Defender’s Office
- 2012-2013: Deputy in charge of central trial support and coordinator of new felony attorney training
- 2009-2011: Assistant deputy in charge of the Alhambra and Long Beach Branch offices
- 1997-2001: Deputy public defender at the Los Angeles County Public Defender’s Office
- 1996-1997: Staff attorney and AmeriCorps fellow, Legal Aid Foundation of Los Angeles[2]
Background
Sergio C. Tapia II was born in Hawthorne and grew up in Bell Gardens.
He and his younger sister, Beatriz Tapia, were the only two children in the home their parents still live in today.
The family was by no means poor, but what they may have lacked in money, they more than made up for in support for each other. "This idea of going to a four-year university was just unfathomable," Tapia says.
But for the future judge, college was in the cards, and he made sure his little sister followed suit.
"My brother was like the pioneer in this family," says Beatriz Tapia, who is now a professor of Chicano studies at East Los Angeles College. "I think for both my brother and myself, we chose to work in areas we felt some connection to."
Now, Tapia is connecting his life's work with future generations from his own alma mater. The Los Angeles Court system's Teen Court program is in 50 local high schools. Tapia oversees the one for Bell Gardens.
"He impacts us to not give up with our future, especially him being a Latino as well," student Alberto Martinez says.
Some 40 students take part, including real juvenile suspects who have broken the law and whose punishment will be decided by a jury of their peers.
"I want to be a judge. He's a great role model," student Jocelyn Sandoval says.
Tapia's next goal is changing the judicial landscape in California, where only 10 percent of the state's judges are Latino. That fraction, he says, doesn't properly reflect the communities judges serve.
"In order for our society to respect the rule of law, and I'm a firm believer in the rule of law, I think our courts need to reflect the community," Tapia says.
While Tapia was a public defender, he noticed the disparity on the bench. And when he didn't see enough Latino judges get appointed, he decided to file the paperwork himself.
"How can I sit there and advocate for people ... if I'm not willing to do it myself?" he says.
In December 2013, Gov. Jerry Brown appointed Tapia to the Superior Court, a move Tapia says he hopes the community that stands before him will notice.
"I like to believe that they feel some comfort in seeing somebody who looks like them, who can pronounce their name," Tapia says.[3]
"A call to build an organization for the 1990s and beyond"
Unity, January 28 1991, issued a statement "A call to build an organization for the 1990s and beyond" on pages 4 to 6.
This group was a split in the League of Revolutionary Struggle which soon became the Unity Organizing Committee.
Those listed as supporters of the call included Sergio C. Tapia II, student UC Berkeley. .