Inquiry Concerning Couwenberg

*CJP Supp. 207 Opinion

This disciplinary matter concerns Judge Patrick Couwenberg, a judge of the Los Angeles County Superior Court. Judge Couwenberg was charged with (1) misrepresenting his educational background on his personal data questionnaires when seeking judicial appointment; (2) falsely representing, in the course of seeking a judicial appointment in 1996, that he was a Vietnam veteran; (3) misrepresenting his educational background, legal experience and affiliations on his 1997 judicial data questionnaire; (4) falsely representing to the judge who was to introduce him at the public enrobing ceremony that he was a Vietnam veteran who had *CJP Supp. 208 received a Purple Heart; (5) falsely representing to attorneys that he went to Vietnam, had a master’s degree in psychology and had shrapnel in his groin received in military combat; (6) falsely telling a newspaper reporter that he was in Vietnam in 1968 and 1969; and (7) making false statements about his education and military experience in letters and in testimony to the commission during its investigation of his conduct.

A panel of three judges, sitting as special masters, found that virtually all of the factual…