Lester W. Roth; Longtime Appeals Justice

Lester W. Roth, who as California’s senior presiding appellate court justice played a role in approving state Supreme Court nominees from 1979 until 1991, has died. He was 97.

Roth, who retired only last Oct. 15, died Tuesday at his Beverly Hills home of natural causes, his grandson, Matthew Ryder Ross said Wednesday.

As ranking state appellate judge, Roth sat on the state Judicial Appointments Commission with the state’s chief justice and the state attorney general. The commission confirms a governor’s appointments to the state’s highest court.

As senior justice of the 2nd District Court of Appeal, which covers the Los Angeles area, Roth also joined chief justices and attorneys general to approve appointments of appellate justices in his own district.

Roth never rejected a nominee of any governor during his 12 years on the commission, his grandson said.

“The criteria I’ve applied in the past for a judge are that he or she must be a solid lawyer, have unquestioned integrity and have established work habits,” Roth once told The Times. “Give me those three qualities--particularly with trial court experience--and I’m inclined to go along.”

Roth said he did not expect nominees whom he sanctioned to follow his views.

“I might be disappointed at first if someone I approved decided a case contrary to the way I would have decided it,” he said. “But then I’d sit down and say to myself, ‘Hell, what do I know about the case? I can’t second-guess someone who’s examined the testimony and documents first hand. All you can ask is fortitude.”

Open to proposals to change the makeup of the commission over the years, Roth nevertheless approved of his own position on it.

He said the state’s senior appellate presiding justice “certainly ought to know whether a nominee is qualified to be a judge . . . and that’s what the Constitution intended.”

Born April 5, 1985, in New York, Roth moved to Los Angeles with his family in 1904. He was student body president at Los Angeles High School and attended the USC Law School. He supported himself by working as a reporter on the now-defunct Los Angeles Examiner.

He was admitted to the State Bar in 1916.

Roth served as a second lieutenant in the Marine Corps during World War I.

He was named to the Los Angeles County Superior Court bench in 1931 and served until 1936, when he resigned to resume law practice.

“I went broke on the bench,” he told The Times, “and I had a couple of kids to support.”

Roth was appointed to the appellate court in 1963 by Gov. Edmund G. (Pat) Brown Sr.

“The governor wanted to know why in hell I wanted the job,” he told The Times. “I told him the state had been good to me and I wanted to give something back.”

Roth was active in Jewish and charitable organizations, serving as president of the City of Hope, national vice president of the American Jewish Committee and of the American Conference of Christians and Jews, and president of the Jewish Big Brothers in Los Angeles.

In addition to Ross, he is survived by another grandson, Daniel J. Ross, and two great grandchildren, Asher Reid Ross and Dashiell Gray Ross.

Services are scheduled for 11 a.m. Sunday at the Malibu Jewish Center and Synagogue, 24855 Pacific Coast Highway, Malibu.