Retired C.A. Justice Christian Killed Crossing Street

Friday, November 18, 2005

Page 3

Retired C.A. Justice Christian Killed Crossing Street

From Staff and Wire Service Reports

Retired First District Court of Appeal Justice Winslow Christian was killed when a car struck him as he crossed a Redding street, officials said.

Christian, 79, was in Redding Tuesday sitting on assignment in Shasta Superior Court.

Christian died at the scene, police said. The investigation is continuing, but it didn’t appear that speed or alcohol were factors in the crash, officials said.

Redding police identified the driver as 30-year-old Haley Pratt.

A son of missionaries, Christian spent his early years in Burma, but returned with his family at age eight and grew up in Idaho and in the California foothills. He later returned to Burma on a Fulbright Teaching Fellowship.

A graduate of Stanford Law School, he began his legal career as a deputy state attorney general before going into private practice in Sierra County. He was elected to the Sierra Superior Court in 1958 but left the bench after Pat Brown, under whom he had served when Brown was attorney general, was elected governor and asked him to join the administration.

Christian served as head of the state Health and Welfare Agency, and later as the governorís executive secretary, before Brown appointed him to the First Districtís Div. Four in 1966.

While serving on the court, he authored more than 2,000 opinions, including more than 400 for publication. He also served as the first executive director of the National Center for State Courts, lectured in South America as part of the State Departmentís program of promoting judicial independence, constitutional government, and civil rights in foreign countries, chaired the Appellate Judges Conference of the American Bar Association, and taught at the Institute of Judicial Administration at New York University.

He left the bench in 1983 to join the San Francisco law firm of Hanson, Bridgett, Marcus, Vlaho & Stromberg where he handled public agency litigation, while also serving as a private judge. He retired to the foothill community of Camptonville in 1992, but continued to serve on assignment in various courts, including the Los Angeles Superior Court.