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From issuing historic rulings on gay marriage, affirmative action and abortion rights to ushering in a new era of legal and political clout for California's highest court, Chief Justice Ronald George has cast a long shadow of influence across the state since the mid-1990s. On Wednesday, California's 27th chief justice decided it was time to step aside, unexpectedly announcing he will not seek a new 12-year term in November and will put an official end to the "George Court" on Jan. 2. The 70-year-old George said he will retreat from his notoriously frenetic life to read, run and travel —...

LOS ANGELES — In a rare public rebuke of state government and policies delivered by a sitting judge, the chief justice of the California Supreme Court scathingly criticized the state’s reliance on the referendum process, arguing that it has “rendered our state government dysfunctional.” In remarks prepared for a speech Saturday before the American Academy of Arts and Sciences in Cambridge, Mass., the chief justice, Ronald M. George, denounced the widespread use of the referendum process to change state laws and constitutions. And he derided California as out of control, with voters deciding on everything from how parts of the...

LIVE WEBCAST - 03/05/09 California Supreme Court Oral Arguments on Proposition 8 - Same Sex Marriage 9:00AM (PST) http://www.calchannel.com The California Supreme Court will hear oral arguments on Thursday, March 5, 2009, from 9:00 a.m. to 12:00 p.m., in three cases challenging the constitutionality of Proposition 8, a statewide ballot initiative that was passed by a majority of California voters in November 2008. The California Channel will broadcast this event live via your local cable provider and on our website*.*Due to the high demand we expect for this event, if you have problems connecting then the server has reached its...

If Prop. 8 wins, Newsom will be scapegoated. But the recriminations should focus on Ronald George.I voted against Proposition 8, just as I voted against Proposition 22 in 2000, on equality-under-the-law grounds. I hope the anti-gay-marriage constitutional amendment fails on Tuesday. But I'm increasingly beginning to suspect it will pass. Backers have mounted a shrewdly framed TV ad campaign that doesn't have the harsh edge many expected from die-hard opponents of gay marriage. Its focus on the possibility that school kids might be taught about gay marriage has touched a chord among parents. (No, I don't think this claim is...

The California Supreme Court made it easier Thursday for prison inmates to win parole despite a governor's objections, ruling that a woman who fatally shot and stabbed another woman with a potato peeler should remain free. The 4 to 3 ruling, written by Chief Justice Ronald M. George, could affect nearly 1,000 parole cases now on appeal. Lawyers on both sides said it was the first time in recent history that the state high court ruled in favor of a prisoner in a parole case. The decision upheld the release of Sandra Davis Lawrence, who spent nearly 24 years in...

San Francisco (AP) -- California Chief Justice Ronald George has spent more than half his life cultivating an image of a cautious jurist and earning a reputation as a politically skilled court administrator. But his unlikely legacy as gay rights pioneer was sealed May 15, when he heard the roar of a crowd gathered below his office as his majority decision legalizing same-sex marriage was announced. Now, the law-and-order supporter of capital punishment is enduring from gay marriage foes the very complaints of "judicial activism" he has worked so hard to avoid during his 17 years on the high court...

Last week, four of the seven justices on the California Supreme Court engaged in a blatant act of judicial activism, overturning state law banning same-sex marriages. Chief Justice Ronald George declared: "In contrast to earlier times, our state now recognizes [emphasis mine] that an individual's capacity to establish a loving and long-term relationship with another person and responsibly to care for and raise children does not depend upon an individual's sexual orientation." Really? And on what did George base this assertion? Obviously not on the will of Californians and their elected representatives, expressed in the form of legislation passed in...

California Chief Justice Ronald George could have taken the easy road in the legal conflict over gay marriage. When the clock struck 10 a.m. and the Supreme Court released its decision, George knew his court had made history. The 68-year-old George penned the 121-page ruling striking down California's ban on same-sex marriage, opening a new chapter in this era's most wrenching civil rights battle. The 4-3 decision, which George calls the toughest of his career, was announced as the chief justice was in his office, hosting a television crew from New York filming a documentary on the death penalty. Now...

The chief justice of the California Supreme Court said the state's death penalty has become "dysfunctional" and blamed lawmakers for looking the other way as 650 condemned inmates idle on death row. Ronald George said in an interview with The Associated Press that the Legislature's inability to adequately fund capital punishment has led to a de facto moratorium on executions in California. "I think that there are many, many things in the eyes of legislators that have greater priority," said George, who marks his 10th anniversary as chief justice on Monday. "That's the problem. People want to have the death...