Wednesday, May 15, 2019
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Memorial Service Set for Edward Hinz, Retired Court of Appeal Justice
By a MetNews Staff Writer
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EDWARD HINZ 1933-2019 |
A memorial service is set for Saturday for retired Court of Appeal Justice Edward A. Hinz Jr., who served on this district’s Div. Three from 1990-1994.
The service will be held at 1 p.m. at St. Peter’s by the Sea, in Rancho Palos Verdes.
Hinz, 85, died May 6 in his Rancho Palos Verdes residence of 45 years.
Prior to his appointment to the appellate court by Gov. George Deukmejian, he served on the Los Angeles Municipal Court from 1973-74 and on the Los Angeles Superior Court from 1974-90. He was named to the trial court posts by Gov. Ronald Reagan.
Following his 1961 graduation from Hastings College—where he was admitted to the Order of the Coif and worked on the law review—Hinz went to work for the California Office of Attorney General. In 1972, Attorney General Evelle J. Younger named him chief assistant attorney general in charge of the Criminal Law Division.
He is survived by his wife of 63 years, Patricia Hinz; by two sons, Edward Hinz III of Torrance and Steven Hinz of Vancouver, Washington; by grandchildren Edward Hinz IV and Rory Hinz; as well as by a brother, Dan Hinz of San Luis Obispo and a sister, Juliet Hinz Swoboda of Rancho Palos Verdes, a retired lawyer who was a deputy attorney general.
High School Classmates
In a Sept. 18, 2007 interview with the California Appellate Court Legacy Project, Hinz told how he and his future wife met at Woodrow Wilson High School. He said:
“This is kind of sad. I went through three years of high school and never dated her. And then at the end of the school year we had Ditch Day at Catalina, and when we docked, I waited. She came down the gangplank and I asked her if she wanted to go out to have our lunch with a bunch of people, and she said yes. Next thing, we were going to the senior prom and the graduation dance and all that.”
Hinz was questioned by retired Court of Appeal Justice Herbert Ashby, who had been his mentor in the Attorney General’s Office.
‘Public’s Buddies’
In that interview, Hinz expressed this view:
“…I have a sense that we’re in an era—and it’s grown in the last 10 years—where the courts are trying to become the public’s buddies. They want to have all this social interaction and all what have you. I think a certain part of the integrity of the judicial system is that the judges are above this and they have a certain amount of mysticism, and that lends to the strength of their opinions, and we ought to be stressing that.
“Another thing that concerns me is where I have never heard anybody in authority say we’ve got to do a better job trying cases. California is notorious for having a judge handle the case that has no business handling the case, and a fiasco results and nothing is ever done. Tn fact, in one famous case the judge refused to properly instruct the jury. It was crucial to the case, and there was no discipline, there was no nothing, no one ever even commented about it. They just let them go their way. And I think part of the judicial system is that we ought to be improving our performance and we ought to work at it; and that doesn’t mean having coffee klatches with the local merchants.”
Appellate lawyer Douglas Collodel, senior counsel to Clyde & Co US LLP, remarked yesterday:
“I recall first appearing before Justice Hinz as a young lawyer in the 1980s when he was a judge on the Los Angeles Superior Court bench.
“But most of my memories of Justice Hinz come from my appearances in Division 3, where I found him to be a solid jurist, honest to the law, and sound in his reasoning. His tenure with the Court of Appeal was far too short.”
Copyright 2019, Metropolitan News Company