Called ‘Absolutely Fair’ : Rites Held for Retired Judge Kenneth E. Lae

About 450 people attended funeral services Monday in Irvine for former Orange County Superior Court Judge Kenneth E. Lae, who died last Thursday of leukemia. He was 61.

“He was a presiding judge’s dream; he took any case no matter how tough and handled it well,” Orange County Superior Court Judge James K. Turner, a longtime friend of Lae, said in an interview.

“Both sides wanted him because he was absolutely fair. He called the shots the way he saw them, and he would do what he thought was right regardless of politics,” said Turner, who eulogized Lae during services at St. Elizabeth Ann Seton Church in Irvine.

Presiding Superior Court Judge Harmon G. Scoville, who knew Lae for 25 years, described him as a “well-liked judge who never ducked a tough assignment.”

Heard Complex Cases

Before retiring in 1984 because of illness, Lae heard some of the most complex and lengthy trials in Orange County history.

He presided at the trial of former Orange County Supervisor Robert Battin, who was convicted of misuse of public funds in 1976 and sentenced to 30 days in jail.

In 1978, Lae sentenced convicted murderer Gregory Teron Jr. to die in San Quentin’s gas chamber in what became the county’s first death sentence after the reinstatement of capital punishment.

“I’m a believer in capital punishment, and I felt (Teron) deserved it, but to be the one to pronounce it is not an easy job,” Lae said at the time. The state Supreme Court eventually reduced the sentence on appeal.

Lae also presided over the trial of so-called “Freeway Killer” William Bonin and sentenced him to death in 1983 for the murders of 14 men.

A longtime friend, Arthur Gray of Anaheim, who was one of Lae’s first law partners, described him as an activist in Orange County in the 1950s and early ‘60s. Lae was counsel on the committee that was set up to build Anaheim Stadium and had served as president of the Anaheim chapter of the American Legion, Gray said.

Gray, who eulogized his friend, said Lae had battled with leukemia for 3 1/2 years after he had been told that he only had six months to live.

Appointed by Reagan

Lae, a resident of Irvine, was appointed to the North Orange County Municipal Court in 1968 by then-Gov. Ronald Reagan and then advanced to the Superior Court bench in 1971.

He was born July 16, 1925, in Trinidad, West Indies, where his father worked in the oil fields. His family moved to California where he attended public schools in Fullerton from high school through junior college. He served as a naval officer in World War II, then attended UCLA where he received a bachelor of science degree in 1949. He received his law degree from USC in 1952.

Lae is survived by his wife, Karen, and daughters Kathy Reynolds, Rose Marie Cloutier and Teri Stapleton, all of Anaheim.