CMC alumna Suzanne Segal ’82 made the March 19, 2013 Los Angeles Times issue, for ordering the release of Daniel Larsen, who was convicted of carrying a concealed knife during a 1998 bar fight in the city of Northridge. Larsen was declared innocent following a lengthy appeals process that eventually was taken up by the California Innocence Project.
He was released on Tuesday, March 19, after Segal, a Magistrate Judge, declared he was “actually innocent.” She noted, however, that this was a “rare opportunity,” and advised Larsen not to violate the trust that his family, and the court, had placed in him.
“It's been a long journey with lots of ups and downs, a roller coaster,” said Jan Stiglitz, Larsen's attorney and co-director of the California Innocence Project. “To see him walk out is one of the great moments in our work.”
Read the full story: Actually Innocent Man Freed after 13 Years.
Segal, who was a history and political science major while at CMC, was appointed Chief Magistrate Judge for the Central District of California on Jan. 1, 2012. The four-year term provides leadership to the Central District of California’s Magistrate Judges.
She was appointed as a Magistrate Judge for the Central District of California in 2002, and was reappointed in 2010. Prior to her appointments, she served as an assistant United States Attorney in the Civil Division, and later as Chief of Civil Appeals, of the United States Attorney’s Office for the Central District of California. Segal practiced civil litigation in Los Angeles, first with Adams, Duque & Hazeltine, and later with Dewey Ballantine LLP. After graduating from CMC, she earned a law degree from Cornell Law School.
The Central District of California is comprised of the counties of Los Angeles, Orange, Riverside, San Bernardino, Ventura, Santa Barbara, and San Luis Obispo, and serves approximately 18.5 million people––roughly half the population of the state of California.