Ronald M. George

Governor Ronald Reagan appointed George as a Judge of the Los Angeles Municipal Court on April 20, 1972. George was elected to a full six-year term on November 2, 1976.[1][3]

Governor Jerry Brown appointed him to the Los Angeles County Superior Court on December 23, 1977; George was elected to a full six-year term on November 7, 1978, and re-elected on November 6, 1984.[1][3]

As a Superior Court judge, George presided over the trial of Hillside Strangler Angelo Buono in 1981–83.[1][3] In that trial, George made the extremely unusual decision to deny the District Attorney's motion to dismiss all 10 counts of murder. The prosecutors felt their evidence against Buono was so weak that it did not justify even an attempt to win at trial, and trial judges rarely second-guess such decisions.[3]

George reassigned the case to the California Attorney General's office, and that office successfully convicted Buono on nine of the 10 counts.[3] Thus, it was recognized that the judge, through his action to deny the earlier motion to dismiss, had ultimately prevented a serial killer from going free.[4] Oddly, Los Angeles County District Attorney John Van de Kamp had been elected California Attorney General during the lengthy trial, so he led both the office trying to dismiss the charges and the office that successfully won conviction.[5]

George also presided over the trial of Marvin Gay Sr. for the slaying of Gay's son, the singer Marvin Gaye.[6]

Governor George Deukmejian appointed him to the California Second District Court of Appeal on July 23, 1987. George was confirmed and sworn in on August 27, 1987, and was elected to a full twelve-year term on November 6, 1990.[1][3]

In 2008, Chief Justice George authored the opinion in the Supreme Court's 4–3 ruling in In re Marriage Cases legalizing same-sex marriage in California.[9] Citing the court's 1948 decision legalizing interracial marriages,[10] George's opinion found that sexual orientation is a protected class like race and gender, meaning that attempts to ban same-sex marriage would be subject to strict scrutiny under the Equal Protection Clause of the California Constitution.[11] It was the first state high court in the country to do so.[11]

Voters would overturn the decision less than six months later by passing Proposition 8 in the November 2008 elections.[12] However, Proposition 8 would itself be later overturned by a federal court in Perry v. Schwarzenegger, and thus In Re Marriage Cases was reinstated as valid constitutional law in California.

George was occasionally floated as a candidate for justice of the United States Supreme Court as a conservative acceptable to Democrats, such as when Democratic United States Senator Barbara Boxer suggested George as a potential nominee for the seat on the Court vacated by Sandra Day O'Connor's retirement. Boxer described both George and his fellow California Supreme Court Justice Kathryn Werdegar, as Republicans who "reflect the spirit of Sandra Day O'Connor's tenure—independent and nonideological."[13]