Jerry Brown Reshapes the California Supreme Court

When he was first Governor in the 1970’s, Jerry Brown appointed the first woman, first Latino and first black to the State Supreme Court. Two of them were later recalled by the voters. In his third term as Governor, he appointed two law professors, but he waited until after election to his fourth term this month before naming a successor to retiring Justice Joyce Kennard. Now he’s chosen a young, African-American woman, Leondra Kruger, a deputy assistant attorney general in the Obama Administration. Gerald Uelmen, a law professor at Santa Clara University and student of the judiciary, calls the appointment a “mind blower.”