Halim Dhanidina (born September 20, 1972) is an American lawyer and former judge from California. As of April 1, 2022, he is a partner at the criminal defense firm of Werksman Jackson & Quinn LLP in Los Angeles.[4] He was a justice of the California Court of Appeal for the Second District. Appointed to the Los Angeles Superior Court bench by Governor Jerry Brown in 2012, he is the first Muslim to ever be appointed judge in California.[5] He is an IsmailiShiite of GujaratiIndian heritage, his parents immigrating from Tanzania.[6][7][8]
He was a Deputy District Attorney of Los Angeles County for fourteen years, prosecuting cases for the Hardcore Gang and Major Crimes Divisions. He is also a founding member of the Association of South Asian Prosecutors, and a member of the Asia Pacific American and South Asian Bar Association.[9][failed verification]
Prior to becoming a prosecutor, he obtained a Juris Doctor degree from UCLA School of Law, where he was the co-chair of the Asia Pacific Islander Law Students Association.[5][10][11] Before that, he completed a B.A. in International Relations at Pomona College in 1994, where he founded the Muslim Students Association.[12]
In 2012, Governor Brown appointed him to serve as a judge on the Los Angeles County Superior Court and in 2018 Brown appointed him to Division Three of the California Court of Appeal, Second Appellate District.[13] The Commission on Judicial Appointments unanimously confirmed him on August 23, 2018.[13]
In April 2016, while dismissing charges of lewd conduct and indecent exposure against a defendant in his court, Judge Dhanidina strongly criticized sting operations by the Long Beach Police Department directed at gay men seeking sex in public places, noting that the sting operations appeared to induce the conduct for which the defendants were then arrested, and that the police apparently did not conduct any similar sting operations directed at heterosexual conduct.[16]
In April 2022, former Justice Dhanidina joined the California defense firm Werksman, Jackson & Quinn LLP.[4]
^Jill Leovy. "Faith informs work of state's first Muslim judge". la times. Retrieved 19 October 2015. His parents left Tanzania for Illinois before he was born. The family is Ismaili, a Shiite tradition that represents a progressive strand within Islam....Their tradition bears little resemblance to the media images of Muslims that bombarded Dhanidina through childhood. The Muslims he knew were "not here to change American society," he said. "They are here to be part of it. They buy in." But Dhanidina, who is of Gujarati Indian heritage, learned early to keep quiet when people talked of Islam. "It was always in a context that would make me defensive," he said.
^Sunita Sohrabji. "Brown Appoints California's First Muslim Superior Court Judge". indiawest.com. Retrieved 19 October 2015. The Chicago-born, Evanston, Ill.,-raised Dhanidina, whose Gujarati parents Lutaf and Mali emigrated from Tanzania to the U.S., in 1960, said that his 14 years as a deputy district attorney and being in court nearly every day have made him intimately familiar with how a courtroom works, including the rules that govern a trial.
^"US First Muslim Superior Court Judge". www.onislam.net. Retrieved 20 October 2015. CAIRO – In a major leap for the Muslim minority in the United States, a Muslim attorney was appointed to a California Superior Court judgeship, to be the first Muslim American on a California bench... Born in Chicago, Dhanidina is the son of Gujarati parents who emigrated from Tanzania to the US in 1960. A founding member of the Association of South Asian Prosecutors, Dhanidina spent 14 years as a Los Angeles County deputy district attorney.
