The three candidates vying to fill the vacant Superior Court judge seat in northern Santa Barbara County faced off Thursday night in Santa Maria in the first and possibly only forum of the race for the North County judge candidates.

Judge candidates Jed Beebe, Kevin Ready and John MacKinnon each had a chance to speak on their backgrounds and qualifications at the event, which was sponsored by the League of Women Voters of Santa Maria Valley and moderated by league member Ann Walsh.

The event was held at the Betteravia Government Center, and was also a candidates forum for the 4th District supervisor race.

The attorneys also answered questions submitted by audience members.

Beebe, Ready and MacKinnon are competing for the seat left vacant by the 2006 removal from the bench of Diana Hall, who heard civil cases in Santa Maria.

Each acknowledged during the forum that the competition for the judgeship is not a well-known race, and the attorneys said they believed this would be their only forum.

Lynn Cutler, a prosecutor with the county District Attorney's Office in Santa Maria, will also appear on the ballot for the judge race in the June 3 election. However, Cutler said in March that he was dropping out of the race, but was unable to remove his name from the ballot.

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Beebe, a court research attorney, was the first of those vying for the judgeship to speak.

He said he has done a variety of work, and has the perspective of a judge.

“And I think it's been a really marvelous sort of apprenticeship for judgeship,” Beebe said.

“And it's been really a revelation of sorts that there are right answers to legal questions,” he said, adding that he felt he had developed the skill to find those answers.

MacKinnon, a senior deputy district attorney in Santa Maria, said his time spent in the courtroom distinguished him from his opponents.

“I work in a courtroom. I try cases,” he said.

MacKinnon said he has tried more than 53 jury trials to completion.

“Being in the courtroom shouldn't be something that's new to them on the first day on the job,” he said.

Ready rejected MacKinnon's implication about the opposing candidates' lack of courtroom experience, and said that he had indeed spent time in the courtroom.

He said he has served as a prosecuting attorney, a defense attorney, and “I've done just about every kind of civil law.”

Ready said that with Beebe coming in close, he had the broadest experience and had done more appellate work than the challengers.

“I have the down and dirty life experience of these things that I've done,” he said.

Ready has been a senior attorney for the county for 18 years, and was an attorney before that, too.

He has said he has served as an officer in the U.S. Army and the Navy, has been a federal prosecutor, a Congressional candidate and an author.

In federal contracts, Ready said he represented almost a dozen counties, including Santa Barbara County, in appellate cases that established California law in this area.

MacKinnon has worked for about 12 years as a prosecutor. For the past four years, he has handled the sexually violent predator commitment cases in the North County. He has served as district attorney representative in the county's treatment courts.

He said he helped start the county's Workers Compensation Insurance Fraud Unit three years ago, and began the county Rural Crime Taskforce with a grant from the state.

Beebe has spent the last 18 years as the court's research attorney but served as an attorney before that as well.

He said he has served as a special master and as a temporary judge in civil and criminal trials, on law-and-motion matters, in juvenile court hearings and on traffic and small claims calendars.

Beebe said he has worked closely with local judges, helping them problem-solve.

Samantha Yale can be reached at 739-2159 or syale@santamariatimes.com.

May 9, 2008