Ronald M. George

Ronald Marc George (born March 11, 1940) is an American jurist. He previously served as the 27th Chief Justice of California from 1996 to 2011. Governor Pete Wilson appointed George as an associate justice of the Supreme Court in 1991 and elevated George to Chief Justice in 1996.

Early life and education George was born in Los Angeles on March 11, 1940, and grew up in Beverly Hills, the son of a Hungarian immigrant mother and French immigrant father.

George and his sister attended the International School in Geneva, Switzerland from 1952 to 1953 and 1955–1956, where their lessons were taught in French. He graduated from Beverly Hills High School in 1957. He earned an A.B. from Princeton University in 1961 and J.D. from Stanford Law School in 1964.

He was successful in defending the conviction of Sirhan Sirhan for the assassination of Robert F. Kennedy Oddly, Los Angeles County District Attorney John Van de Kamp had been elected California Attorney General during the lengthy trial, so he led both the office trying to dismiss the charges and the office that successfully won conviction.

California Court of Appeal Governor George Deukmejian appointed him to the California Second District Court of Appeal on July 23, 1987. George was confirmed and sworn in on August 27, 1987, and was elected to a full twelve-year term on November 6, 1990.

Notable Cases

In 1997, Chief Justice George authored the court's opinion on American Academy of Pediatrics v. Lungren striking down a state statute requiring a minor to obtain parental consent for an abortion as an unconstitutional violation of the state constitutional right of privacy.

In 2008, Chief Justice George authored the opinion in the Supreme Court's 4–3 ruling in In re Marriage Cases legalizing same-sex marriage in California. Citing the court's 1948 decision legalizing interracial marriages, George's opinion found that sexual orientation is a protected class like race and gender, meaning that attempts to ban same-sex marriage would be subject to strict scrutiny under the Equal Protection Clause of the California Constitution. It was the first state high court in the country to do so.

Potential U.S. Supreme Court nominee George was occasionally floated as a candidate for justice of the United States Supreme Court as a conservative acceptable to Democrats, such as when Democratic United States Senator Barbara Boxer suggested George as a potential nominee for the seat on the Court vacated by Sandra Day O'Connor's retirement. Boxer described both George and his fellow California Supreme Court Justice Kathryn Werdegar, as Republicans who "reflect the spirit of Sandra Day O'Connor's tenureindependent and nonideological."

Retirement On July 14, 2010, Chief Justice George announced he would not seek to be retained in 2010 and would therefore retire at the end of his term: January 2, 2011. He was succeeded by Tani Cantil-Sakauye.

In 2013, after his retirement, he published a book of memoirs, Chief: The Quest for Justice in California, about his legal and judicial career.

Personal life On January 30, 1966, George married Barbara J. Schneiderman in Los Angeles. They have three sons: Eric, Andrew, Christopher as well as three grandchildren, Charlotte, Maya, and Kohl.

George successfully completed the Boston, New York, San Francisco, and Big Sur marathons.

Judicial Awards and Recognitions President of the California Judges Association (1982–83),

American Judicature Society's Herbert Hawley Award (1997),

Institutional structural reforms promulgated by Chief Justice George include adoption of state funding for all of the trial courts, merger of the three types of trial courts into a single trial court in each county, and the state's acquiring ownership from the counties of all of the courthouses in the state.