Full Biography for Earl Johnson, Jr.

Candidate for
Justice, California State Court of Appeal; District 2 Division 7

JUSTICE EARL JOHNSON, JR.

In 1994, the late Bernard Witkin, long recognized as the preeminent authority on California law and revered by judges and lawyers of all political affiliations and philosophies, wrote:

"I have been evaluating California opinions and writing about California law for over 50 years . . . Justice Johnson's range of legal knowledge, his understanding of the processes of appellate review, and his skillful and articulate crafting of opinions, are unsurpassed by any sitting member of the Court, or indeed, by any distinguished occupants of the appellate bench of past decades. A Johnson opinion is a model of careful organization, clear and convincing reasoning, and stimulating style."

Witkin's appraisal was based on the 500 published majority and dissenting opinions (along with several thousand unpublished opinions) Johnson has authored in the past fifteen years. Before he was appointed to the appellate bench the Judicial Nominees Evaluation Commission found Johnson "Exceptionally Well-Qualified" for the Court of Appeal. In the intervening years he has also earned "Appellate Justice of the Year" and "Outstanding Judicial Achievements" awards for his performance on the court. On the relatively rare occasions the California Supreme Court has taken over a case in which he wrote the majority or dissenting opinion the high court's own decision generally has adopted Johnson's interpretation of the law. (Over two-thirds of such cases during the 1990's)

The Presiding Justice of Division Seven, Mildred Lillie, emphasizes some other attributes of Johnson's approach to the job of judging. Justice Lillie is the senior appellate justice in the entire state and is one of the state's most honored and admired judges. Justice Lillie writes:

"I have served on the appellate court since 1958 and have had the opportunity to work personally with more than a dozen justices and to closely observe the performance of scores of justices serving on other divisions in the 2nd District as well. Justice Earl Johnson, Jr., who has been my colleague on Division 7 and with whom I have worked for the past 14 years, has become one of the very best justices to serve on the Second Appellate District during my years here.

"A conscientious judge, of admirable judicial temperament, he is fair, he listens, he is patient and he is respectful to those who come before him. He has a special understanding of and sensitivity to the problems of litigants and lawyers, and of the judicial process. Justice Johnson has an unfailing commitment to the fair and impartial administration of justice and is a vigorous advocate of access to and fairness in our courts as we serve an ever more diverse population. His background and experience have given him an extensive fund of legal knowledge which is reflected in his carefully reasoned and structured opinions. Justice Johnson is an extraordinarily able and dedicated jurist and a special human being."

(Justice Lillie and Justice Johnson have agreed on over 95 percent of the more than 6,000 appeals they have decided together during the past 14 years.)

The last time Justice Johnson was on the ballot 70 percent of the electorate voted to retain him on the Court of Appeal. Now in 1998, the President of the Los Angeles County Association of Deputy District Attorneys writes:

"On behalf of the Los Angeles County Association of Deputy District Attorneys, I want to…let you know that…the Board of Directors unanimously voted to endorse you for another term in office. The board did this because you have shown over your years on the California Appellate Court to be an outstanding jurist…[Y]our standards cannot be questioned."

Johnson brought an unusually rich mix of experience to the appellate bench. In the twenty-one years before his appointment he served as a naval officer, federal prosecutor, legal aid lawyer, a government official heading the federal program providing legal services to poor people, a law professor at the University of Southern California, a member of the L.A. County Regional Planning Commission, and an author of several books and articles about trial practice, organized crime, legal aid, and the administration of justice.

EARLY YEARS, EDUCATION AND MILITARY SERVICE

Johnson was born and raised in Watertown, South Dakota, the son of a traveling salesman and a former schoolteacher. He had a typical midwestern small town upbringing: swimming and fishing in the local lake, playing American Legion baseball, hunting, camping and scouting activities. But starting at age 12, Johnson also worked summers and after school -- picking potatoes, delivering newspapers, as a waiter, grocery bag boy, lifeguard and eventually assistant manager of a YMCA summer camp.

Leaving Watertown for the big city after high school, he attended Northwestern University in Chicago on a N.R.O.T.C. scholarship. While there he was elected student body president, was a varsity debater, and member of the Sextant, Delta Sigma Rho, and Deru honorary societies. On graduation day he received his B.A. with a major and Departmental Honors in Economics (highest GPA in economics)and a commission as an Ensign in the U.S. Navy.

After graduation, he served three years active duty as a naval officer on an aircraft carrier, the U.S.S. Saipan, and on the staff of the Supreme Allied Commander, Atlantic. Upon returning from the service, he attended the University of Chicago Law School under a national scholarship and earned his J.D. degree in two years as part of an accelerated program established for returning veterans. During those two years, he was selected for the University of Chicago Law Review and served as Book Review Editor of that publication, and also won an AmJur Award, while working half-time as a paid research assistant at the American Bar Foundation. Johnson later spent a year at Northwestern University School of law under a Ford Foundation Fellowship and earned an L.L.M. in Criminal Law, writing his dissertation on the subject of organized crime.

LEGAL EXPERIENCE BEFORE APPOINTMENT TO COURT

Upon graduation, Johnson worked for several years as a federal prosecutor with the Organized Crime and Racketeering Section (OCR) of the U.S. Department of Justice. As a Trial Attorney and Special Assistant U.S. Attorney he conducted grand jury investigations, tried cases and argued appeals in various parts of the country. He ultimately started and headed the OCR Section's field office (later called a "strike force") in Las Vegas. Johnson's role is one of those featured in a book recently published about the exploits of the organized crime section during that era. (Goldfarb, PERFECT VILLAINS, IMPERFECT HEROES: ROBERT KENNEDY'S WAR AGAINST ORGANIZED CRIME (Random House, 1995).)

Johnson then became a legal aid lawyer, accepting an offer as Deputy Director of a new ten-office thirty-attorney neighborhood lawyer program located in Washington, D.C. Along with the agency's other lawyers, he worked in that city's most impoverished areas representing poor people in civil cases. Later he was appointed the first Deputy Director and then the second Director of the national OEO Legal Services Program, a federal agency which developed and funded similar organizations throughout the country to provide legal help to poor people with their civil legal problems. During his tenure this program grew to 850 offices in 250 communities staffed by 2,000 lawyers handling nearly a million cases a year.

After leaving government, Johnson was employed as an Associate Professor then a full Professor of Law at the University of Southern California where he taught evidence, trial practice, law and poverty, and professional responsibility. While at U.S.C. he also started a clinical program that placed students in District Attorney's offices and civil legal aid offices, headed a research program on dispute resolution for seven years, wrote a set of books on trial practice, handled appellate litigation on a pro bono basis, won the "Justin Dart Award for Academic Innovation", was a Visiting Scholar at the University of Florence in Italy and at the European University Institute, and a State Department lecturer in Africa.

During his time on the USC law faculty, Johnson served for a year-and-a half as one of five part-time members of the L.A. County Regional Planning Commission making land use and zoning decisions in the unincorporated areas of the county. He also devoted several years to the executive committee of the National Resource Center for Consumers of Legal Services, which coordinates efforts to make low-cost legal services available to the middle class. In 1977, the California State Bar gave then Professor Johnson its first annual "Loren Miller Legal Services Award" and in 1978 KNX named him "Southern California Citizen of the Week."

ACTIVITIES AS JUDGE

Since his appointment to the bench Johnson has served several years on the Judicial Ethics Committee and the Appellate Courts Committee of the California Judges Association. He also was a member of the board of the Continuing Judicial Studies Program that provides ongoing education for experienced judges. In recent years, he chaired the California State Bar's Access to Justice Working Group and currently is a member of the California Access to Justice Commission. He was the founding President of the Consortium for the National Equal Justice Library (located at American University in Washington, D.C.)and remains on the Library's executive committee.

Johnson is a member of the law school honorary society, Order of the Coif. He also is a Fellow of the American Bar Foundation and serves on the Advisory Research Committee of that organization and on the editorial board of its journal. In 1990, the California State Bar named its new fellowship program for recent graduates "The Earl Johnson Community Lawyer Fellows." Johnson has been listed in WHO'S WHO IN AMERICA since 1978 and WHO'S WHO IN THE WORLD since 1980.

SELECTED PUBLICATIONS

During his career Johnson has authored or co-authored sixteen books including JUSTICE AND REFORM (1974, 1978), TOWARD EQUAL JUSTICE (1975, 1981), DISPUTE RESOLUTION IN AMERICA (1984), CALIFORNIA TRIAL GUIDE (8 vols. 1986), CALIFORNIA FAMILY LAW TRIAL GUIDE (4 vols. 1992), and FEDERAL TRIAL GUIDE (5 vols. 1992), as well as over forty articles including a series on "Organized Crime: Challenge to the American Legal System", published in the JOURNAL OF CRIMINAL LAW, CRIMINOLOGY AND POLICE SCIENCE (1962-63), "A Conservative Rationale for the OEO Legal Services Program", published in the UNIVERSITY OF WEST VIRGINIA LAW REVIEW (1968), and "Toward a Responsive Justice System", published by the NATIONAL CENTER FOR STATE COURTS(1978).

PERSONAL LIFE

Justice Johnson is married to Barbara Y. Johnson, a former L.A. County Deputy District Attorney and Chief Assistant Attorney General in the California Department of Justice and now an independent mediator and fact finder, and has three children -- Kelly, a clinical psychologist, Eric, a television executive, and Agaarn, a college student. His hobbies include tennis, travel, photography and video-photography, reading mysteries and history, writing, watching sports on television, and exchanging e-mail with his children, relatives and friends in other parts of the country.