Mallen Challenges Mellon: Dude, It's So On

Mary Mallen has made up her mind, and the three-way race for Judge Thomas Mellon Jr.’s seat on the San Francisco Superior Court is officially on.

Mallen, a San Francisco solo, told the Recorder today that she had declared her candidacy for Mellon’s seat with the county elections commission. Mallen filed preliminary paperwork on Jan. 31, but at the time said she was caught off guard by city Supervisor Gerardo Sandoval’s entry into the race and needed to take the weekend to figure things out.

Conversations with her supporters, and a bit of Google research on Sandoval, led her to stay in the race, she said.

“I think that Gerardo’s going to have his own issues,” she said. “He’s said some things that have gotten him into some situations.”

Mallen might be referring to a 2006 incident where, in an interview with Sean Hannity and Alan Colmes, Sandoval was pressed about his opposition to turning a World War II battleship into a permanent museum in the bay. Sandoval ended up stating that the United States should not have a military, and that the country can defend itself with the police and the Coast Guard.

Mallen, who has spent time in both the DA’s and PD’s offices, said her run for judge is not political, but rather stems from her respect for the bench and her father's influence.

Judge William J. Mallen was appointed to the San Francisco Municipal Court in 1982 and died of a heart attack in the middle of a trial 10 years later. In an interview, Mallen recalled what it was like to go to his courtroom the day after his death to collect his things: She sat in his chair; at her feet were buttons that had been torn from his robes during the attempt to save his life, and in front of her were notes he had taken during the trial. It was then, she said, that she decided to become a judge one day.

Mallen did obliquely acknowledge the politics that swirl around her challenging a sitting judge. She said her decision to take on Mellon was prompted in part by his publicized difficulties in dealing with the public defender’s office. People in the Hall of Justice community “have been asking me to challenge him for years,” she said.

—  Evan Hill