Joseph Grodin

Joseph Raymond Grodin (August 30, 1930 – April 6, 2025) was an American lawyer and law professor. He served as a Presiding Justice of the California Court of Appeal and an associate justice of the Supreme Court of California. Grodin lost his Supreme Court seat in a contentious 1986 retention election that also removed Justice Cruz Reynoso and Chief Justice Rose Bird.

Background Grodin was born in Oakland, California on August 30, 1930. Grodin's father had emigrated from Vilkaviškis, Lithuania where his own father and grandfather had been rabbis. While at Cal, Grodin was on the debate team with fellow future California Supreme Court Justice Allen Broussard.

Professional life

Legal practice Grodin returned to California in 1955 and joined Tobriner's law firm focusing on labor law.

The California Agricultural Labor Relations Board had just been created after a hard fought campaign by Cesar Chavez and California Secretary of Agriculture Rose Bird.

Governor Brown appointed Grodin to the California Supreme Court in December 1982.

When the court abolished the death penalty in People v. Anderson (1972) the electorate restored it with California Proposition 17 (1972) and expanded it with California Proposition 7 (1978). While the court upheld Proposition 17, now Chief Justice Rose Bird and Justice Torbriner dissented. Nevertheless, Chief Justice Bird, a former public defender, voted to reverse every single one of the more than 60 death penalty cases she heard, usually joined by Justices Cruz Reynoso, Allen Broussard, and Grodin. She dissented from allowing a victims' rights amendment to the constitution, Proposition 8 (1982), to even appear on the ballot. After it passed, Justice Grodin dissented in part along with Chief Justice Bird when a bare majority of the court upheld the proposition.

After the electorate exercised a 1982 veto referendum against what voters saw as Brown's gerrymandered redistricting plan, a bare majority of the court ordered the governor's plan to be used anyway. Grodin joined the majority blocking voters' subsequent attempt to redistrict directly through a 1983 proposition, even as dissenting Justice Frank K. Richardson inveighed the court "slams the door to the polling place in the face of the people". The court was attacked for these rulings as being partisan and overly political. Grodin joined the liberal majority when it granted the American Federation of Labor's 1984 original petition to block a balanced budget amendment proposition from appearing on the ballot.

Retention election California Supreme Court justices must be confirmed by the electorate at the first election for governor after their appointment. No incumbent had been defeated since Justice Frank G. Finlayson in 1926. Nevertheless, Chief Justice Rose Bird, Jerry Brown's Secretary of Agriculture and a former public defender, was only supported by 51.7% of voters in the 1978 general election, the same ballot that passed Proposition 7.

Newly elected California governor George Deukmejian, elected in 1982 and who as attorney general had voted to approve Grodin's appointment to the appeals and supreme court benches, supported a movement to remove the liberal justices from the Court, based largely on the rulings regarding redistricting, tax reform, and ballot propositions.

Capitalizing on moral panic over the crack epidemic and the public's intense dislike of Jerry Brown, Governor Deukmejian began a campaign to recall "Jerry's Justices" by labeling them soft on crime and overly political in their rulings. California prosecutors, noting that there had been zero executions since the electorate restored the death penalty, released a white paper attacking the justices as biased in favor of criminal defendants and trial lawyers. Commercial attorneys followed, releasing a paper accusing the court of being beholden to big labor.

Grodin had served as treasurer on Eugene McCarthy's presidential campaign and had himself made an unsuccessful run for the Berkeley City Council. Grodin was supported by 43.4% of voters, while Justice Cruz Reynoso was supported by 39.8%, and Chief Justice Rose Bird was supported by 33.8%. Deukmejian, who had won a reelection rematch in a surprise 61% to 37% landslide, was now free to appoint a majority of the court.

Grodin returned to being a law professor at UC Hastings and wrote extensively about the need to abolish judicial elections.

Books California State Constitution: A Reference Guide (Reference Guides to the State Constitutions of the United States). Greenwood Press (1993); Collective Bargaining in Public Employment. West Publishing (1993); Public Sector Employment: Cases and Materials. West Group Publishing (2004); In Pursuit of Justice: Reflections of a State Supreme Court Justice. University of California Press (1989); Silver Lake (High Sierra Hiking Guide, No 17). Wilderness Press (1983);