Candidate for
Superior Court Judge; County of San Diego; Office 20

Stephen P. Clark Candidate for Judge of the Superior Court -- Office No. 20

Biographical Information

Following graduation from the United States Naval Academy, Steve served as a Marine infantry officer, including one combat tour in Viet-Nam with the 1st Battalion, 7th Marines. He left active duty with the Marine Corps to attend the University of Texas School of Law in Austin, Texas, remaining in the Marine Corps Reserve until 1992, leaving with the rank of Lieutenant Colonel.

After graduating from law school and a year of clerking for the Texas Court of Criminal Appeals, Steve began a legal career with the United States Department of Justice in 1974. With a short interruption of three years in private practice, he worked for the Department of Justice until September 2007. A nationally recognized prosecutor during his career with the Justice Department, he served for eighteen years as an Assistant U.S. Attorney in the Southern District of California (San Diego).

While an Assistant U.S. Attorney in San Diego, Steve held supervisory positions including First Assistant United States Attorney (second-in-command for the office) and Chief of the Major Frauds Section. As First Assistant for more than five years, Steve was responsible to the United States Attorney for all phases of federal prosecutions in San Diego and Imperial Counties, for all civil litigation in which the United States was a party, and for administration of the 120-plus attorney office. Before becoming the First Assistant, Steve personally prosecuted political corruption, corrupt judges, Medicare fraud, tax fraud, Ponzi schemes, bank robberies, murder conspiracy, violent crimes, human trafficking, involuntary servitude, and drug offenses.

At the Justice Department, Steve served as a trial attorney and supervising attorney in the Civil Rights Division in Washington, D.C. He also served as a Special Assistant U. S. Attorney in the District of Columbia, and in the District of Puerto Rico (San Juan) where he was appointed by the Attorney General to lead a federal criminal civil rights prosecution. Steve also served as an Assistant U.S. Attorney in the Eastern District of Tennessee (Knoxville) where he was Chief of the Criminal Division.

Beginning in June 2008 Steve served a one-year term as a member of the San Diego County Grand Jury, devoting thirty-five to forty hours per week to work on oversight investigations of political and taxpayer-supported entities in the County. In 2009 Steve began working as a voluntary literacy tutor for READ/San Diego -- an effort that he is enthusiastically pursuing. In the past Steve was a mentor to a disadvantaged student at Mission Bay High School in San Diego for three years. Earlier, for ten years he was in charge of a program to provide pro bono legal services to junior Marines in the Washington, D.C. area.

Steve's distinguished career, including thirty years of law enforcement experience, demonstrates his abiding commitment to public service and to the rule of law. Throughout that career his goal has been to litigate fairly and to seek justice, treating all persons with dignity and respect.

Steve has been married for more than twenty-five years, and has one son.