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2005 Cal. Sup. Ct. Hist. Soc'y Newsl. 1 (2005)

handle is hein.journals/casrecths2005 and id is 1 raw text is: itliA SUApF ${ THE CALIFORNIA SUPREME COURT 1 HistoricalSociety NEWSLETTER - SPRING/SUMMER 2005 A History of the Court of Appeal for the First Appellate District BY HON. JAMES J. MARCHIANO Adopting the motto Striving for Justice Yesterday, Today, and Tomorrow: 1905 to 2005, the California Court of Appeal begins a celebration of its one-hundredth anniver- sary this year. This article, featuring the First Appellate District, inaugurates a series, continuing in future CSCHS Newsletter issues, that will include histories of each of the six districts of the Court ofAppeal. The California court system first gained an inter- mediate Court of Appeal in 1905. Twenty years earlier, due to a backlog of cases confronting the Supreme Court, the legislature authorized the Court to appoint three commissioners to assist the justices in resolving appeals. In 1889 the number was increased to five. A commissioner authored an opinion, joined by two other commissioners. Three Supreme Court jus- tices reviewed the opinion and then formally adopted it, affirming or reversing the judgment as indicated. The California Reports for this era reflect the name of the authoring commissioner and the names of the approving justices. But members of the Bar complained that shadow commissioners rather than elected justices were doing the Court's appellate work. Finally, with the number of undecided cases con- tinuing to increase, on March 14, 1903, the legislature approved a constitutional amendment creating three intermediate courts of appeal and abolishing the com- mission. The amendment provided for the appoint- ment of justices and their subsequent election, and authorized the transfer of cases to the new tribunals and review of their decisions by the Supreme Court. Voters approved the amendment in the general elec- tion of November 1904. The legislature set the justices' annual pay at $7,000, a good salary in 1905. Governor George Pardee appointed a total of nine justices to serve in the First District in San Francisco, the Second District in Los Angeles, and the Third District in Sacramento. The new justices included the five commissioners in office at the time. In the First Appellate District, the court consisted of Ralph C. Harrison and James Coop- er, both former commis- sioners, along with Samuel Hall, who was elevated from the Superior Court of r - Alameda.On May 22, 1905, Justice Harrison, early 1900s the First District became the first appellate court to decide a case, People v. Curtis, 1 Cal.App. 1 (1905). Ralph Harrison served as the District's first presid- ing justice. A prominent San Francisco lawyer, he had been elected in 1890 to a twelve-year term as an Associate Justice of the Supreme Court. Thereafter he was appointed as a Supreme Court commissioner until his appointment to the First District Court of Appeal. His opinions were noted for their crystalline clear- ness, according to a contemporary commentator. Under the constitutional amendment, the new appointees subsequently sat for election in 1906. This circumstance resulted in a personnel change for the First District. Presiding Justice Ralph Harrison de- served to be nominated, but the Republican conven- tion, dominated by San Francisco Boss Abe Ruef, selected San Francisco Board of Supervisor James Gallagher to run instead. The voters elected James A. Cooper, the Democratic candidate, as Presiding Justice, along with Samuel P. Hall and Frank H. Kerrigan as Associate Justices. Justice Harrison then retired to private law prac- tice with his sons in San Francisco. He lost his elegant home in the 1906 San Francisco fire and later with his wife donated their considerable book collection to Carmel where the Ralph Harrison Public Library stands as a memorial to him. The constitutional amendment also required each justice to select his term by lot so that the terms were NEWSLET TER - SPRIN(./SUMNIER 2005 r

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