A Judicial Giant

Abstract

When I served as Governor of California from 1959 to 1967, I considered my most important single responsibility to be that of appointing able and dedicated judges at every level of our judicial system. That responsibility, of course, carried special weight in the appointment of justices of the California Supreme Court. It reached its apex when I had the opportunity to appoint a new chief justice of the Supreme Court of California upon the retirement of Chief Justice Phil Gibson in 1964. I take great pride and satisfaction in having then appointed Roger J. Traynor to the highest judicial office in this State. Roger Traynor and I graduated from our respective law schools and were admitted to the California State Bar in the same year, 1927. I began my career as a private practitioner in San Francisco. As a young trial lawyer I learned firsthand the need to have well-qualified judges in this state. I followed with interest Roger's career as a member of the law faculty at Boalt Hall from 1929 to 1940, and consultant to the California Board of Equalization and the United States Treasury Department during those years. I was pleased when Governor Cuthbert Olson appointed Roger Traynor as an associate justice of the California Supreme Court in 1940. As I turned to public life, serving as District Attorney for the City and County of San Francisco from 1944 to 1950, and as Attorney General from 1951 to 1959, I observed closely Roger Traynor's work as a supreme court justice. That observation, together with my discussion of the court and its work with lawyers, judges, law professors, and citizens of California, made me increasingly aware that Justice Traynor was making an outstanding record as a jurist in his work on the court. Roger Traynor contributed enormously to both the analysis and development of constitutional law, criminal law, and the law of contracts, torts, and evidence, among other subjects. His opinions were both scholarly and well-written, and he did not hesitate to bring fresh, critical analysis to bear on outworn legal doctrine. Moreover, he brought an integrity, perspective, and style to his work that made him an effective member of a court consisting of able jurists not lacking in respect for their own views. Because of these qualities and his dedication to the responsibilities of his office, Associate Justice Roger Traynor both