In her State of the Judiciary speech to California’s legislators, Chief Justice Tani Cantil-Sakauye spoke of equality. The Chief Justice noted that, in this centennial year of the 19h Amendment guaranteeing votes for women, the proponents of that constitutional change would be proud to see in the Senate chambers so many women leaders, many of whom wore white.
Stating that racial and income inequality threaten equal access to justice, Cantil-Sakauye also commended the Governor and Legislature, in a time of xenophobia, for recognizing and apologizing for California’s role in the internment of Japanese-Americans during World War II. Two internees — the Chief Justice’s mother- and father-in-law — attended the speech.
Cantil-Sakauye also said that courts have become centers for social justice, and she announced the formation of a work group to determine ways in which the courts can deal with the homelessness crisis.
A substantial portion of the Chief Justice’s address was spent praising Justice Ming Chin, who will retire at the end of August after 24 years on the Supreme Court. Calling him a “jurist without parallel” who “personifies the California dream,” she singled out a dissent Chin wrote while on the Court of Appeal and an opinion he later wrote for the Supreme Court calling for recognizing battered woman syndrome as a defense in domestic violence cases. Those opinions “changed the legal landscape forever,” the Chief Justice said.
Besides Justice Chin, Justices Carol Corrigan, Goodwin Liu, Mariano-Florentino Cuéllar, and Joshua Groban were in attendance.
[Update: here are a transcript and video of the speech. Also, photo added.]
