SAN FRANCISCO — When James Lambden was appointed to the First District Court of Appeal in 1996, the Alameda County public defender at the time, Jay Gaskill, predicted he would chart a centrist course on the appellate bench.
Seventeen years later, Lambden is set to retire in July without having published a single dissenting opinion. Instead Lambden has frequently cast the deciding vote in Division Two by siding with more liberal Presiding Justice J. Anthony Kline or more conservative Justice Paul Haerle.
