A Chief’s-eye view of the California Supreme Court

Today marks the release of an interview-style memoir from former California Supreme Court Chief Justice Ronald George, Chief: The Quest for Justice in California. A front-page article in today’s Los Angeles Times gives you a glimpse into a few themes in the 822-page book. One: a court funding crisis — though not of the same magnitude as the one faced today — was never far off at any given time:

When Ronald M. George served as chief justice of California, he pleaded annually with legislators for money to run the courts, warning the loss of funds would compromise justice.

But he said he learned that some lawmakers took positions on the budget for purely personal reasons, obsessively discussing their divorces or traffic tickets and punishing the judiciary for rulings they did not like.

“I remember dealing with one state senator who found it impossible … not to bring up his own divorce proceedings and how he thought he’d gotten a raw deal at the hands of his wife and her attorneys and didn’t feel the court system dealt with him fairly,” George said, not naming the elected official.

This book should have been released on Halloween, because that is really, really scary.

UPDATE (11/7/13): Southern California Appellate News has information on a book signing scheduled at UC Berkeley next week , and The Recorder provides another summary of the book.