Monday, July 29, 2002
Page 1
Los Angeles Superior Court Judge David Horowitz to Retire
By KENNETH OFGANG, Staff Writer/Appellate Courts
Los Angeles Superior Court Judge David Horowitz said Friday he will retire Sept. 4.
“I just decided it’s time,” the jurist, who turns 60 this coming Friday, told the MetNews. He will become a private judge with ADR Services.
Horowitz has been a judge since 1980, when then-Gov. Jerry Brown appointed him to the Los Angeles Municipal Court. He was elevated to the Superior Court by Brown in 1981.
Horowitz has been an active member of the court, as well as of the American Bar Association, the California Judges Association, and the Los Angeles County Bar Association, and said he will continue to participate in legal community activities.
As a member of the ABA, he has chaired the Judicial Division, the National Conference of State Trial Judges, the National Conference of Lawyers and Representatives of the Media, and a committee dealing with enforcement of laws related to drunk and drugged driving.
On the Superior Court, he chaired the Task Force on Fairness and Equity, and was supervising judge of the criminal courts from 1988 to 1990 before moving to a civil assignment in what is now the Stanley Mosk Courthouse. He served on the Executive Committee in 1993 and 1994 and ran twice for assistant presiding judge.
He has also been a member of the BAJI and CALJIC committees, the Judicial Council Advisory Committee on Access and Fairness, the Commission on the Future of the Courts, and several State Bar committees.
A graduate of UC Berkeley and UCLA School of Law, where he was president of Phi Delta Phi legal fraternity, he was admitted to the State Bar in 1967. He began his career as a deputy public defender, and was a senior trial attorney in the office when Brown tapped him for the bench.
Horowitz said he had no regrets about his choice of career.
“This experience has been absolutely wonderful,” he said. “I’ve gotten a tremendous amount of pleasure out of being a judge.”
The Los Angeles native and Van Nuys High School graduate has been active in a number of community groups outside the law. He has chaired the Los Angeles County Task Force on Drug Abuse, served on the boards of the San Fernando Valley Jewish Federation Council and the local Anti-Defamation League, and was a member of the Citizens Advisory Committee for the 1984 Olympic Games.
But his most important work has been on the bench, he said.
“In looking back…I have attempted to administer justice in a fair and impartial way,” he commented Friday. “I think I have done that to the best of my ability and that’s the thing I’m most proud of.”
Copyright 2002, Metropolitan News Company