Word: traynor
(lookup in dictionary)
(lookup stats)
Dates: during 1980-1989
Sort By: most recent first
(reverse)
DIED. Roger J. Traynor, 83, influential chief justice of the California Supreme Court who served for 30 years on what was widely considered the nation's most aggressive and progressive state court; of cancer; in Berkeley, Calif. Appointed in 1940 and named chief justice in 1964, he wrote more than 900 opinions, many of which boldly abandoned precedents and, especially in expanding criminal defendants' rights, anticipated later federal court rulings...
...legend that is now coming apart traces back to 1940. That year Governor Culbert Olson appointed both Chief Justice Phil Gibson and Associate Justice Roger Traynor. Gibson was a master administrator, Traynor a brilliant theorist. Together they molded an efficient statewide judiciary led by a supreme court whose decisions were often artful expansions of existing law that created new rights for California's citizens. During its heyday in the 1960s, judges across the country frequently followed California's lead in criminal and consumer rights...
Some time in the 1970s the trouble began. Gibson and Traynor had retired, and the seven-man bench was saddled with a senile justice who refused to step down. Seeking to change the court's direction, then Governor Ronald Reagan made three appointments, including one (William Clark, now National Security Adviser) whose failure to finish law school prompted charges that Reagan was naming lightweights. A few years later the same charge was being tossed at Governor Jerry Brown, who also tried to fill the court with nominees sharing his outlook...