Posted on 04/12/2025 1:38:10 PM PDT by nickcarraway
When Joseph Grodin was a state Supreme Court justice 40 years ago, the court was a political lightning rod — at least for its rulings on criminal cases, particularly the death penalty. In 1986, Grodin, Cruz Reynoso and Chief Justice Rose Bird were voted out of office after a campaign that called on Californians to “cast three votes for the death penalty,” the only time justices have been denied new terms since the state began nonpartisan retention elections for justices on its highest courts in 1934.
The court’s majority swung from liberal to conservative after the vote, drifted back to the center and later to its current moderately liberal majority, issuing mostly unanimous rulings while virtually disappearing from public view. “I doubt that there’s 1 in 10 people, maybe 1 in 100, who can name a justice of the California Supreme Court,” Grodin said in an interview in 2022, after more than 30 years teaching labor law at UCSF.
On Sunday, Grodin, the last surviving member of the 1986 court, died in his apartment in Oakland with family members at his side, said Sharon Grodin, one of his two daughters. He was 94. Janet Grodin, his wife of 72 years, died in July.
The son of Jewish immigrants from Poland, Grodin was born in Oakland in 1930, grew up in nearby Piedmont, attended UC Berkeley, then went to Yale Law School with the encouragement of Mathew Tobriner, a labor lawyer who later became his predecessor on the state Supreme Court. He then joined Tobriner’s law firm at a salary of $300 a month, as he recalled later — “I thought I would practice for three years. It ended up being 17.”
Meanwhile, he began teaching labor law at the school then known as UC Hastings College of the Law, where
(Excerpt) Read more at sfchronicle.com ...
Any relation to Charles?
I’m a Patriot who believes in the Rule of Law of the Constitution as the Supreme Law of the Land (US Const., Art. IV, Cl. 2) as written and originally understood and intended.
However, I believe the death penalty is wrong because it is double jeopardy. 2000 year ago, Someone Else fully paid for and died for that capital crime.
I’m an attorney and I believe in justice and protecting the community. If the capital convict can’t be verifiably rehabilitated and he is verifiably dangerous, then he should be kept locked up to protect the community.
Let the flaming begin...
Further...
The purpose of incarcerating an unrehabilitated dangerous convict isn’t punishment but protection of innocent people and the community.
Peace and safety.
Your definition of double jeopardy doesn’t match what double jeopardy actually means. By your definition no one could ever be charged with any crime because we’ve already been convicted and the sentence already carried out
Wrong.
By my definition, no one could be PUNISHED for a crime, but things like incarceration as a DETERRENT and/or PROTECTION of the community are legitimate ways to deal with a dangerous convict.
Unfortunately, for the Senate seat, conservatives had to choose between Comrade Alan Cranston, the incumbent Democrat, and his "Republican" challenger Ed Zschau (rhymes, appropriately, with Mao). The conservatives went fishing and Cranston served another term.
THE COST OF SUCH CONFINEMENT IS QUITE EXPENSIVE.
WE HAVE BETTER PLACES FOR THAT KIND OF $$$$$
Too expensive not to kill them?
That’s sad.
I used to be a very strong supporter of the death penalty. I changed my mind because there is an overwhelming amount of evidence that too many prosecutors are all too willing to lie and withhold evidence in order to get a conviction even if they know the accused is innocent.
For those who have a negative opinion of criminal defense attorneys; they don’t have a clue about the level of corruption by law enforcement officers, prosecutors, judges.
Figures we’d get a Leftist here.
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