Davis Names 5 to Superior Court

A well-known veteran prosecutor, two court commissioners and two private attorneys were named Los Angeles County Superior Court judges last week by Gov. Gray Davis.

The appointees are former Deputy Dist. Atty. Harvey Giss, commissioners Norman P. Tarle and Allen J. Webster, and attorneys Margaret S. Henry and Kenji Machida. They will earn $133,051 a year.

County Presiding Judge James A. Bascue said that with 16 vacancies in the Los Angeles County court system, the appointments are needed desperately.

Giss, 61, a deputy district attorney since 1972, has handled some of Los Angeles County’s highest-profile cases, including the 1980 Bob’s Big Boy restaurant robbery in which four people were shot to death and four others wounded. When he retired from the district attorney’s office last month, the Los Angeles resident was prosecuting cases in the auto insurance fraud division.

Tarle, 50, of Santa Monica, has been a commissioner since 1985 and handles criminal matters in Norwalk. Webster, 59, of Los Angeles, has been a commissioner since 1995 and presides over civil cases in Compton.

Machida, 58, of Santa Monica, practices business law in Los Angeles and is a former president of the Japanese American Bar Assn. Henry, 53, of Santa Monica, specializes in employment law and is a former prosecutor in the Los Angeles city attorney’s office.