Black Assembly Leader John Miller Dies at 52

Services will be held Thursday for former state Court of Appeal Justice John Miller, the first black to become Assembly Democratic leader, who died after a long illness. He was 52.

Miller, who died Saturday, had been hospitalized several times in the last year for diabetes and kidney disease. His failing health forced him to resign his judicial post last month.

“He was an outstanding legislator before he became a judge, from the time he began on the Berkeley School Board through his election to the California Assembly,” California Supreme Court Justice Allen Broussard said Monday night.

Miller, a Berkeley Democrat, had a 12-year career as an assemblyman representing Berkeley, North Oakland and Alameda.

He was chosen Assembly Democratic leader in 1970 but lost a bid for the speakership in 1971 to Assemblyman Willie Brown of San Francisco. He chaired the Assembly Judiciary Committee from 1974 to 1978 and was a member of the Judicial Council of California.

He was appointed to the First District Court of Appeal in San Francisco in 1978 by Gov. Jerry Brown.

Born July 28, 1932, in Savannah, Ga., Miller earned his undergraduate degree at Talladega College in Talladega, Ala. In 1957 he received his law degree from Howard University in Washington, D.C., and moved to California.