The Supreme Court announced on Friday that former Justice Joyce Kennard has died. She passed away on August 26, according to Bob Egelko in the San Francisco Chronicle.
Kennard served on the California high court for over 25 years (from her appointment by Governor Deukmejian in 1989 — to replace Justice John Arguelles — until her 2014 retirement), longer than all but four other justices in the court’s history. But that is just a part of one of the most unique lives of California jurists. As explained in the California Courts news release by Merrill Balassone:
Justice Kennard was born in Indonesia to parents of Dutch, Indonesian, Chinese, and German descent. As a young child during World War II, she and her family were held in a Japanese internment camp. As a teenager, she had her leg amputated after developing a tumor and wore a prosthetic for the rest of her life. She immigrated to the United States and settled in Los Angeles, where she worked as a secretary while pursuing her education. She earned an associate’s degree from Pasadena City College, then a bachelor’s degree, a master’s in public administration, and a law degree, all from the University of Southern California.
Chief Justice Guerrero said about Kennard that her “life was a testament to resilience, and she brought that same strength to 25 years of service to this court.” In her retirement letter to Governor Jerry Brown, Kennard wrote, “I never felt that America owed me anything. I am indebted to America for letting me in.”
Justice Kennard worked in multiple capacities in the state’s judicial system. She was a Second District Court of Appeal research attorney before being appointed to the Municipal and Superior Courts and to the Court of Appeal before joining the Supreme Court. She was the first Asian-American California high court justice and only the second women to serve there.
When Kennard retired, Maura Dolan wrote in the Los Angeles Times, “She has been regarded as a highly independent judge, often siding with the underdog. Though she owed her place on the top court to former Gov. George Deukmejian, a law-and-order conservative, she bucked expectations and sided so often with the late liberal Justice Stanley Mosk that the pair was dubbed ‘the odd couple.’ ”
Although Kennard was a frequent dissenter, the Times article noted that “[m]any of [her] dissents have been adopted by the U.S. Supreme Court, the U.S. 9th Circuit Court of Appeals and the Legislature.” Additionally, at least one was vindicated by the California Supreme Court itself. In People v. Lopez (2019) 8 Cal.5th 353, 368–369, the court overruled its prior decision in In re Arturo D. (2002) 27 Cal.4th 60, praising Kennard’s Arturo D. dissent. (See here.)
But Kennard was also part of 4-3 majorities, and separately concurred, in two exceptionally consequential cases, overturning statutes that required parental consent for a minor’s abortion (American Academy of Pediatrics v. Lungren (1997) 16 Cal.4th 307) and that outlawed same-sex marriage (In re Marriage Cases (2008) 43 Cal.4th 757). In the abortion case, Kennard had dissented from the court’s first opinion that had upheld the legislation, but she was then in the majority of the court’s decision after rehearing was granted. The Chronicle obituary reports that “Kennard said her concurring opinion in the marriage case was one she would especially remember.”
Justice Kennard also had the reputation as one of the most active justices at oral argument.
Within the Supreme Court, Kennard was known as a superior boss. She “was loyal to her staff and her staff was loyal to her,” Terry Mead, Kennard’s Head of Chambers attorney for 24 years, wrote in a statement to At The Lectern. He recounted that “four of the five attorney positions on her staff were filled by the same people for almost the entire time she was on the court.”
The Los Angeles Times reported that, during a severe budget crunch in 1991, Kennard was the only Supreme Court or Court of Appeal justice to join staff in taking four days without pay, a voluntary furlough program intended to avoid pay cuts or layoffs. “I feel I owe it to my staff,” Kennard was quoted as saying. “How can I ask them if I were not going to be subject to the same sacrifice?”
Mead also said that Kennard was very much a hands-on justice: “She carefully edited [drafts prepared by her attorneys], indicating word changes and asking questions about the reasoning. The document was then circulated to the other attorneys on her staff and a meeting was held at which all the attorneys could comment and suggested changes. This process was often repeated two or three times until she was entirely satisfied that the writing was as clear, and the reasoning as persuasive, as they could be.” Michele Kort wrote in a 1993 extended Los Angeles Times profile that Kennard “is involved in every office decision, every piece of paper, she tells me with a mixture of pride and a little weariness, and saves her line-by-line edited rough drafts to prove it.”
A personal note: more than a quarter century ago, Justice Kennard decided California’s appellate rules of court needed updating and Chief Justice George created and made Kennard the chair of the ad hoc Appellate Rules Project Task Force, which, over a number of years, revised those rules. I served on the Task Force at Justice Kennard’s invitation. After one Task Force meeting, Kennard showed me one of the rough drafts she had heavily edited.
Additional related:
AsAm News: First Asian American to serve on California Supreme Court dies at 85
Articles laud Justice Kennard’s long service on the California Supreme Court
