DECEMBER 5, 2013 BY RICHARD K. DE ATLEY
Attorney Sunshine S. Sykes became Riverside County Superior Court’s first Native American judge when she appointed to the bench by Gov. Jerry Brown Thursday, Dec. 5.
Brown also announced Thursday the appointment of Khymberli S.Y. Apaloo as San Bernardino County Superior Court judge. She had been serving as a commissioner. Apaloo, 43, is from Rancho Cucamonga.
Sykes, 39, of Riverside, has been a a deputy county counsel at the Riverside County Office of County Counsel since 2005.
The graduate of Stanford University Law School, where she also earned her undergraduate Bachelor of Arts degree, is a member of the Navajo Nation.
She was a contract attorney at the Juvenile Defense Panel from 2003 to 2005. Sykes was a staff attorney and Equal Justice Works fellow at the California Indian Legal Services from 2001 to 2003, according to a release from the governor’s press office.
Sykes fills the vacancy created by the retirement of Judge Randall White.
Riverside County Superior Court Presiding Judge Mark Cope said Sykes will be sworn in to her new post before the first of the year.
“I have heard so many good things about her,” Cope said in a phone interivew. ” I am thrilled not only to have an appointment, but this particular appointment. It sounds like she is going to be a fantastic addition to our bench,” he said of Sykes.
Before Apaloo was appointed a San Bernardino County commissioner in 2012, she was a partner at the Haslam and Perri law firm from 2003 to 2012 and an associate attorney at Covington and Crowe from 1998 to 2003.
She earned her law degree from the New York University School of Law and a Bachelor of Arts degree from University of California, Berkeley. Apaloo fills a vacancy created by the retirement of Judge John Martin.
Riverside County: First Native American Judge Appointed
