O’Connell is a Los Angeles County Superior Court judge in San Fernando and serves as the assistant supervising judge for the court’s North Valley District, which includes the Santa Clarita, San Fernando and Chatsworth courthouses and their combined 22 bench officers.
“I am so pleased that the Senate confirmed Judge O’Connell, a distinguished jurist and former prosecutor, so she can begin serving the people of the Central District,” said Sen. Barbara Boxer, D-Calif., who recommended her to President Obama for the federal post.
Born in Ventura in 1965, O’Connell was appointed to the Superior Court bench in 2005 by former Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger.
O’Connell, a lifelong Southern Californian, grew up in Northridge and was valedictorian of her high school. She graduated from UCLA in 1986 with a bachelor’s degree in political science and went to law school at Pepperdine, where she was managing editor of its Law Review and graduated magna cum laude in 1990.
After five years in private practice, O’Connell served as a federal prosecutor for 10 years beginning in 1995 and was the lead attorney, Boxer said in her Senate testimony, “on a case that led to the indictment of the highest ranking member of a major drug trafficking organization on U.S. soil.”
O’Connell lives in Pasadena with her husband Dan, a Los Angeles County deputy district attorney.
Asst. Chief Judge of Local Court District Ascending to Federal Bench
