Friday, June 29, 2007
Page 1
Court of Appeal Justice Joanne Parrilli to Step Down
By KENNETH OFGANG, Staff Writer
First District Court of Appeal Justice Joanne C. Parrilli is retiring at the end of next month, a court official said yesterday.
Parrilli, 59, has been an appellate justice since 1995. She was a judge of the Oakland-Piedmont-Emeryville Municipal Court from 1985 to 1988, and an Alameda Superior Court judge from 1988 until her elevation to the appellate bench.
The jurist concurred in the opinion upholding the constitutionality of California’s limitation of marriage to one man and one woman. She also authored majority opinions in cases in which the court ruled that highly salaried public employees must be identified by name in response to a request under the California Public Records Act, that proof of the race of the perpetrator is not required as a foundation for introducing evidence of the likelihood, in various racial populations, of finding a random DNA sample matching that discovered at a crime scene, and that a law requiring transient sex offenders to register in the jurisdiction where they are “located” within five working days of changing their “location,” to give police written notice of their new “location,” and to register at every “location” they regularly occupy in a single jurisdiction was unconstitutionally vague.
The jurist is a native of Chicago, where she attended Catholic elementary and secondary schools and Loyola University. She also matriculated at the University of Madrid in Spain and majored in anthropology at San Francisco State University, graduating in 1971.
She earned her law degree in 1974 from the University of San Francisco, working at the Marin County Public Defender’s Office for a time while in school there. Upon graduation, she joined the District Attorney’s Office in Alameda County, leaving in 1980 and later joining a firm in Tahoe City where she practiced criminal defense and civil litigation.
She return to the Alameda D.A.’s office in 1983, and was named a senior felony trial prosecutor before being appointed to the bench.
She has taught at the National Institute of Trial Advocacy, the University of San Francisco School of Law, Hastings College of Trial and Appellate Advocacy, the California Judicial College, and at Boalt Hall School of Law.
Parrilli has also served on a number of California Judges Association committees, including the Executive Committee and the Ethics Committee, which she chaired in 1996.
She also has been a panelist for several Rutter Group programs and has published articles in California Courts Commentary. She chaired CJA’s Courts and Technology Committee in 1987 and was a member of the Judicial Council of California in the 1990s.
The jurist is also respected for her sense of humor.
While she was moderating a question-and-answer session with Chief Justice Ronald M. George at a CJA luncheon some years ago, a question was asked about the validity of local judicial benefits, which permit some judges—notably those in Los Angeles County—to earn more money than their counterparts in the rest of the state.
After George suggested that the extra benefits might be unconstitutional, drawing pained looks from some of the Los Angeles judges in the audience, Parrilli drew laughs by suggesting that the judges from this county pick up the tab for the luncheon.
Copyright 2007, Metropolitan News Company