Three Vie for the Black Robe

Looming like a sick joke – or perhaps a cruel cautionary tale – over the county’s current judicial race is last week’s ruling by the California Supreme Court giving gays and lesbians the constitutional right to get married. That’s because there probably wouldn’t be any contest for the judgeship at the Santa Barbara County Superior Court were it not for former judge Diana Hall’s intense panic several years ago that North County voters would find out that the woman with whom Hall shared her Santa Maria home was her romantic partner.

Hall worried, she later explained, that the voters were “too redneck” to understand such romantic arrangements, and that they’d vote her out of office if they knew. Her insistence on remaining closeted generated friction with her domestic partner, and that tension turned nasty in December 2002. Hall was arrested for drunk driving after a violent argument with her lover, during which Hall wielded a hand gun and threatened to shoot one of the couple’s dogs.

That incident got Hall prosecuted by the Santa Maria District Attorney’s office, where she was once a star. But what eventually caused Hall’s removal from the bench was the revelation that she falsified a campaign finance disclosure report, claiming to have donated $20,000 to her own election campaign when it was her partner who had written the check. Without this turn of events, Hall could have likely remained on the bench for as long as she wanted.