Tuesday, May 27, 2003
Page 3
California Supreme Court To Honor Late Justice Marcus Kaufman June 4
By a MetNews Staff Writer
California Supreme Court Justice Marcus Kaufman, who retired in 1990 after less than three years on the court and died March 26, will be honored by the court when it sits in Los Angeles on June 4.
A memorial to Kaufman will be held at the beginning of the court’s session that day, at 9 a.m. in the courtroom of the Ronald Reagan Building. The court will hear three cases that morning after the memorial and two more that afternoon.
Kaufman was elevated to the state’s highest court from the Fourth District Court of Appeal, Div. Two, in 1987 after 17 years on the appellate bench. He was one of three jurists appointed by then-Gov. George Deukmejian after the late Chief Justice Rose Bird and Justices Cruz Reynoso and Joseph Grodin were defeated at the polls.
When he retired after his short tenure, saying he wanted to spend more time with his family, he joined the Newport Beach office of Buchalter, Nemer, Fields & Younger.
Kaufman, who often repeated a friend’s description of him as a “redneck with a high I.Q.,” was a Norfolk, Va. native whose family moved to Southern California in 1942. He was valedictorian at Hollywood High School, graduated from UCLA and USC Law School, and served in the Army in Korea.
He taught law at USC, clerked for the late California Chief Justice Roger Traynor, and practiced in San Bernardino before then-Gov. Ronald Reagan named him to the Court of Appeal in 1970.
Copyright 2003, Metropolitan News Company