Indian American Sanjay T. Kumar has been appointed to a judgeship in the Los Angeles County Superior Court by California Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger.

The 40-year-old Republican was among three people appointed to the bench. The other two appointees were Craig J. Mitchell and Alex Ricciardulli, both Democrats.

Kumar, who will have a salary of $139,784, has served since 2001 as court commissioner in the court where he is assigned to the criminal court.

Prior to that, he was supervising deputy attorney general for 11 years when he handled many high profile appeals, including the securities fraud case against financier Charles Keating, and the Menendez brothers' murder case.

A native of Chicago, Kumar is a product of the public school system. He went on to graduate from Loyola University in Chicago and then moved to California to Pepperdine Law School, and was admitted to the State Bar in 1990. Before being made commissioner, he was a state criminal appeals attorney.

The judicial panel that reviewed commissioner applications four years ago ranked Kumar as the No. 3 candidate from the list of more than 200 who applied for the position.

He is a member of the California Judges Association, the Asian Pacific American Bar Association, the South Asian Bar Association, and the California Asian Peace Officers Association.