Court elects judges

The judges of the Ventura Superior Court have elected Judge Kevin J. McGee as presiding judge and Judge Vincent J. O'Neill Jr. as assistant presiding judge for 2009 and 2010.

The new term for both begins Jan. 1, 2009.

McGee has served as a Ventura Superior Court judge for almost 10 years. He has been the Superior Court assistant presiding judge since January 2007 and is currently the supervising judge of the Criminal Division. Past assignments have included family law, civil, criminal trials and criminal arraignments.

McGee was elected to the Ventura Superior Court bench in November 1998. Before that, he was a member of the Ventura County district attorney's office for 16 years.

He served as chief assistant district attorney from 1994 to 1998. Before joining the district attorney's office, he was in private practice for almost three years, working in the insurance defense field.

McGee graduated cum laude from the Loyola Law School in 1979 and magna cum laude from Loyola Marymount University in 1976.

O'Neill was appointed to the Ventura Municipal Court by Gov. Pete Wilson in 1992 and elevated to the Superior Court bench three years later. He has been a judge for 16 years.

O'Neill is presently the supervising judge of the Civil Division and is a former presiding judge of the Appellate Division. Past assignments have included appeals, civil trials and criminal trials.

Prior to his appointment to the bench, O'Neill was a member of the Ventura County district attorney's office for 13 years, eight of them as chief deputy district attorney. For two years before that, he was a deputy attorney general in the Los Angeles criminal division.

O'Neill earned his bachelor's degree at Loyola Marymount University and his juris doctorate from UCLA School of Law. He is an adjunct professor at Ventura College of Law and the publisher of O'Neill's California Confessions Law.