Courts: Pioneering California

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Although state courts once dominated U.S. law, the growth of the U.S.

as a nation has inevitably cast federal courts as the prime interpreters of an ever-expanding U.S. Constitution. Many overruled state judges resent the trend; many overworked federal judges yearn to curb it. But now that almost every lawsuit is potentially a federal case, how can state courts regain their power and influence?

One practical answer is supplied by the remarkable record of the seven-judge California Supreme Court. The nation's most aggressive and progressive state court is no respecter of dusty precedents. It has tirelessly renewed the law in everything from criminal justice to product liability—and often it has been years ahead of the U.S. Supreme Court.

Founded in the gold-rush days of 1849, the California court seemed destined to become the nation's zaniest tribunal. Justice David C. Terry (1855-59), for example, was a ferocious Mississippian who began honing his bowie knife on assorted victims as a 13-year-old soldier in the Texas War of Independence. After getting elected to the California court on the Know-Nothing ticket, Terry was jailed and convicted for stabbing a San Francisco vigilante. Not only was Terry freed, he became chief justice in 1857 and promptly killed U.S. Senator David C. Broderick in California's most famous duel.*

No. I State Judge. The court is still no ivory tower—and hardly can be in a lavishly litigious state with a booming population that in 25 years has tripled to 18.6 million. In 1965 the court considered 2,553 petitions, held year-round hearings on 165 cases. This year's cases range from conscientious objection (is it an "infamous crime"?), to whether Negroes are correct in charging that California violated the 14th Amendment in 1964 by voting to permit private-property owners to refuse to sell or rent to anyone they do not wish to do business with (TIME, Nov. 5). Last week the court fielded an equally hot issue by approving a reapportionment plan that, in effect, gives Southern California control of the state legislature.

Like federal courts, California's are now centrally administered and answerable to the state's top court. Under former Chief Justice Phil S. Gibson, who retired last year at 72, the state banished overlapping minor courts and nonlawyer judges. In 1960 the voters approved Gibson's pioneering plan to ease aging or incompetent judges out of office (TIME, March 26). But sound organization is only half the story. Equally vital is the quality of California's high court, which currently includes such able men as Justices Mathew O. Tobririer, Paul Peek and Raymond E. Peters. Most important of all is the brilliant legal mind of Gibson's successor, Chief Justice Roger J. Traynor, 65. Traynor, says Illinois' own distinguished Justice Walter V. Schaefer, is "the nation's No. 1 state judge."