Judge Daniel T. Nishigaya was appointed to the Santa Clara County Superior Court by Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger in December 2009. Before taking the bench, Judge Nishigaya was a Supervising Deputy District Attorney in the Santa Clara County District Attorney’s Office, where he specialized in the prosecution of family violence crimes, including domestic violence, child abuse, elder abuse, and parental child abduction. He became a prosecutor in 1996 after a one-year judicial clerkship with the Honorable James R. Browning of the United States Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit.