Rose Bird
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Rose Elizabeth Bird (November 2, 1936–December 4, 1999) served for 10 years as the 25th Chief Justice (and first female justice and only female Chief Justice) of the Supreme Court of California until removed from that office by the voters in the November 1986 general election.
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[edit] Early life and experience
Bird was born near Tucson, Arizona. Her father, after having deserted the family, died when she was five, so her mother Anne moved with Rose and her two older brothers to New York, where they grew up in poverty. Bird earned her bachelor's degree Magna Cum Laude from Long Island University and went on to graduate from UC Berkeley's Boalt Hall in 1965.
Her career was marked by several firsts: prior to becoming the first female Chief Justice of California, she was the first female law clerk in the Supreme Court of Nevada, the first female deputy public defender in Santa Clara County, the first woman to hold a cabinet-level job in California (as Secretary of Agriculture) and the first chief justice (male or female) to be removed from California's Supreme Court. In 1966 Rose Bird had joined the Santa Clara County Public Defender's Office where, between 1966 and 1974, she held the positions of deputy public defender, senior trial deputy, and chief of the appellate division. In addition to arguing cases before California's Supreme Court, Courts of Appeal, and in federal court, Bird taught at Stanford Law School from 1972 through 1974.
Her tenure on the Supreme Court was controversial. She was criticized as an ideologue who substituted her personal bias over the law and state Constitution. Her widely perceived personal versus judicial opposition to the death penalty was a particular sore point for her critics. She was first up for confirmation in 1978. There was a campaign waged against her, which she did not respond to. However, shortly before the vote, it was charged that the court decided to withhold the publication of a controversial ruling until after the 1978 vote [1]. The ensuing controversy generated considerable press coverage but Bird was confirmed by a 52% to 48% margin.
As of 1986, six of 15 Chief Justices in U.S. Supreme Court history, including Earl Warren, had had no previous judicial experience,[1] but Bird's lack of prior judicial experience, when originally appointed by former Governor of California Jerry Brown, led to the assertion that she was unqualified for the position in campaign literature by Republican Associates of Southern California, directed by Gene Wibert of Glendale, CA.[2]
[edit] Reconfirmation Loss
Bird was the first Chief Justice to be removed from that office by a majority of the state's voters. California justices are selected by the governor but must be regularly reconfirmed by the electorate; prior to Bird, no California appellate judge had ever failed such a vote.[3]
She was removed in the November 4, 1986 election by a margin of 67 to 33 percent after a high-profile campaign that cited her categorical opposition to the death penalty.[4] She reviewed a total of 64 capital cases appealed to the court. In each instance she issued a decision overturning the death penalty that had been imposed at trial. She was joined in her decision to overturn by at least three other members of the court in 61 of those cases. [5] This led Bird's critics to claim that she was substituting her own opinions and ideas for the laws and precedents upon which judicial decisions are supposed to be made. In addition, the Bird court struck down California's "use a gun, go to jail" law that made a prison term mandatory for any crime in which the use of a gun was involved. The anti-Bird campaign ran television commercials featuring the children of the victims of the murderers whose sentences Bird and her fellow justices Cruz Reynoso and Joseph Grodin had voted to reverse. In addition to Bird, Reynoso and Grodin were also voted off the seven justice California state supreme court bench. Justice Stanley Mosk, who often joined Bird, Reynoso, and Grodin, was not challenged nor were the other three justices.
As a result of the 1986 election, newly-reelected Governor George Deukmejian was able to appoint several conservative justices including new Chief Justice Malcolm Lucas and moved the court judicially more to the right and generally perceived as now having a more neutral-business and pro-law enforcement judicial philosophy.[6]
The campaign to oust Bird is considered a triumph for social conservatives. However, the campaign was also supported by business and insurance interests, who felt that California's legal system had become too anti-business under prior chief justices like Roger Traynor, and Bird was compounding the liability crisis with opinions that were muddling previously-settled aspects of contract law. Bird had also earned the permanent enmity of the state's powerful agricultural interests by banning the use of the short-handled hoe (a long-sought objective of the United Farm Workers) when she served as the state Secretary of Agriculture.
The California State Library is the repository for the archive of Californians to Defeat Rose Bird.[7]
[edit] Career after the Supreme Court
Bird appeared as a family court judge in an episode of the 1984-85 TV series Pryor's Place starring Richard Pryor. In 1987, Bird appeared as a judge on a television program called Superior Court (a show somewhat similar to The People's Court, though with scripted trials usually focussing on topical issues).
[edit] Death and tributes
Bird died on December 4, 1999, at Stanford University Medical Center from complications of breast cancer (which she had fought on and off since 1976) at the age of 63. [5]. The California Public Defender's Association established an award in her honor, as did the California Women Lawyers.
| Legal offices | ||
|---|---|---|
| Preceded by Donald R. Wright |
Chief Justice of the California Supreme Court 1977 –1987 |
Succeeded by Malcolm M. Lucas |
[edit] References
- ^ Olson, Lynne, "Rose Bird," Working Woman, October 1984, p. 117 as cited by Chief Bird's Judicial Experience at RoseBirdProCon.org
- ^ Wibert, Gene as cited by Chief Bird's Judicial Experience by RoseBirdProCon.org
- ^ Chen, Edwin. "California court fight; Bird runs for her life." The Nation, 18 Jan 1986, p. 43-46.
- ^ Lindsey, Robert. "Deukmejian and Cranston Win As 3 Judges Are Ousted." New York Times, 6 November 1986, sec. A, p. 30.
- ^ a b Purdum, Todd S. "Rose Bird, Once California's Chief Justice, Is Dead at 63." New York Times, 6 December 1999, sec. B, p. 18.
- ^ Culver, John H. "The transformation of the California Supreme Court: 1977-1997." Albany Law Review 61, no. 5 (Mid-Summer 1998): 1461-1490.
- ^ The Guide to the Californians to Defeat Rose Bird can be found at the the California State Library.
