Starting March 13, Santa Cruz County Superior Court Judge Katherine Hansen is taking the place of Paul Marigonda, who retired before he died last year. She is assigned to Department 1, misdemeanors.
Katherine Hansen
A public investiture is scheduled April 28 at the Santa Cruz County courthouse.
Hanson is one of several court officials taking new roles.
The court’s commissioner since 2022, Hanson was appointed by Gov. Gavin Newsom and took her oath of office Feb. 17.
Before joining the court, she was deputy county counsel in the Monterey County Counsel’s Office from 2019 to 2022.
She was state affairs counsel at the American Association for Justice from 2016 to 2019 and an attorney at the Veen firm from 2014 to 2016. She was a partner at Lewis Brisbois Bisgaard & Smith LLP from 2008 to 2013. She also was vice president of legislative affairs at Barbary Coast Consulting and an associate at Gordon & Rees.
Hansen began her career as a deputy district attorney after earning a juris doctorate from the University of San Francisco School of Law.
Sasha Morgan
Commissioner Gregory Peinado took the oath of office on March 6, succeeding Hansen and assigned to the Department of Child Support Services, Traffic/Minor Violations and Family Preservation Court.
He has been an assistant district attorney with the Santa Cruz County District Attorney’s Office since 2011. He was deputy district attorney for the Tulare County District Attorney’s Office from 2006 to 2011. He earned a juris doctorate from the University of Dayton School of Law in Dayton, Ohio.
The court is awaiting an appointee to succeed Judge John Gallagher, who left the post in September, citing workload issues.
On Dec. 16, the court got a new executive officer when Sasha Morgan was appointed, filling a vacancy created whn Alex Calvo’s retired. He started his career as a clerk in 1989.
Paul Burdick
Morgan was hired by the Santa Cruz court in 2007 to build and staff the Self-Help Center for the Santa Cruz and San Benito courts. Later she was named director of noncriminal operations, overseeing seven units. She started her legal career as a staff attorney and then legal director at Support Network for Battered Women and then as a staff attorney at the Self-Help Center at the Santa Clara County Superior Court.
She earned a bachelor’s degree from UC Santa Barbara, and her juris doctorate from Santa Clara University.
She was admitted to the State Bar in 1997 and received her graduate certificate in judicial administration from CSU Sacramento in 2010.
The court will have one more judicial vacancy when Judge Paul Burdick retires, on or about May 12.
He was appointed by Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger in 2006.
He is ending his long career with the court in a civil/probate assignment.
He has worked in civil, probate and criminal assignments and served as presiding judge from 2018 through 2020.
Gregory Peinado
His leadership during the onset of the Covid-19 pandemic kept court operations open and court staff and members of the public safe.
While presiding in the civil department, he was the designated CEQA/complex civil litigation judge and handled some of the most significant, complex and controversial land use and environmental law cases in modern county history.
He also presided over hundreds of jury trials, civil and felony criminal cases.
Before joining the court, he was in private practice for 27 years specializing in plaintiff’s personal injury and insurance coverage litigation.
He was an associate with the firm of Britton and Jackson from 1979 to 1985 and a partner in the firm of Dunlap & Burdick from 1985 until his judicial appointment in 2006.
He earned a bachelor’s degree from UC Santa Cruz, and a juris doctorate from the University of Santa Clara.
In December 2022, Judge Timothy Volkmann, who is handling civil trials with help from a visiting judge, reported no backlog in civil jury trials. Cases were set for trial every week until November 2023.
The case resolution rate was 89%. Prior to Covid the case resolution rate was 92%.
Judicial mediations, which are free, were booked into April, with possible openings in Dept. 10 prior to that.
The court’s two research attorneys have retired and have been replaced by Madeline Myers and Julia Hill.