Stanley Mosk

American jurist (1912– 2001)

Morey Stanley Mosk (September 4, 1912 – June 19, 2001) was an American jurist, politician, and attorney. He served as Associate Justice of the California Supreme Court for 37 years (1964–2001), the longest tenure in that court's history.

Before sitting on the Supreme Court, he served as Attorney General of California and as a trial court judge.

Early life and career

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Mosk was born in San Antonio, Texas . His family moved to Rockford, Illinois when he was three years old. His parents Paul and Minna (née Perl) Mosk were Reform Jews (of Hungarian and German origin, respectively) who did not believe in strict religious observances. Since Rockford sits next to the Wisconsin border, Mosk's parents followed Wisconsin politics and were strong supporters of Progressive Wisconsin Senator Robert M. La Follette .

Mosk's life was strongly affected by the Great Depression . Mosk graduated from the University of Chicago in 1933 with a bachelor's degree in philosophy . Because his father's business in Rockford was floundering, his parents and brother relocated to Los Angeles , and Mosk followed them after graduating from college, as they could not afford to support him in further studies in Chicago .

At the time, it was possible to use the last year of a bachelor's degree as the first year of a three-year law degree program, so while living with his parents, Mosk was able to obtain a law degree in two years. He earned a LL.B from Southwestern Law School in 1935 and was admitted to the bar that same year.

Mosk opened a solo practice, sharing an office with four other separate solo practices. During those difficult years, Mosk was a general practitioner who took whatever walked in the door.

Entry to politics

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Mosk as executive secretary to governor Culbert Olson , 1940

Mosk first became involved in politics in , when he cast his first vote for Socialist -turned-Democrat Upton Sinclair for governor. Mosk later remarked that Sinclair's End Poverty in California campaign was "the acorn from which evolved the tree of whatever liberalism we have in California." While practicing law, Mosk occasionally assisted Democratic state senator Culbert Olson . In , Olson was elected governor of California and Mosk was hired as Olson's executive secretary the next year.

After Olson lost the 1942 election to Republican Earl Warren , Olson made a lame-duck appointment of Mosk to the Los Angeles County Superior Court . At the age of 30, Mosk became the youngest Superior Court judge in the state.

He faced opposition at his first retention election but prevailed.

In March 1945, Mosk left the Superior Court to volunteer for service in the U.S. Army during World War II as a private , but spent most of the war in a transportation unit in New Orleans and never went abroad.

After an honorable discharge in September 1945, he returned to California and resumed his judicial career.

In 1947, as a Superior Court judge, he declared the enforcement of restrictive racial covenants unconstitutional before the Supreme Court of the United States did so in _Shelley v. Kraemer _.

Attorney General of California

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Mosk in the Re-Cap and Gown (a yearbook for the University of Chicago's class of 1933, who could not afford to produce one at the time), 1958

In 1958, Mosk was elected Attorney General of California by the largest margin of any contested election in the state that year.[_citation needed
_] Upon his inauguration in 1959, Mosk became the first Jew to serve as a statewide executive branch officer in California. In 1962, he was re-elected by a large margin.

As Attorney General, Mosk issued approximately two thousand written opinions, handled a series of landmark cases, and on January 8, 1962, appeared before the U.S. Supreme Court in _Arizona v. California _.

Mosk established the Attorney General's Civil Rights Division and successfully fought to force the Professional Golfers' Association of America to amend its bylaws denying access to minority golfers.

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