James A. Cobey; Served as State Senator, Court Justice

James Alexander Cobey, a California state senator for 12 years, an associate justice of the California Court of Appeal for 14 years and a professor of law at Southwestern University in Los Angeles during the latter part of his career, died Monday.

A family spokeswoman said Cobey, who was chairman of the State Water Resources Committee during the seminal years of California’s water projects, was 80 when he died at his home in Pasadena after an extended illness.

Cobey, a graduate of Yale Law School and the Harvard Graduate School of Business, became a deputy county counsel for Los Angeles County after service as a Navy PT boat officer in the Pacific during World War II. He moved to Merced, where he practiced law. He ran successfully for the state Senate in 1954, representing Merced and Madera counties.

He worked closely with fellow Democrat Gov. Edmund G. (Pat) Brown in helping establish the San Luis Reservoir Project (part of the Feather River Project) and after 12 years in the Senate was named an associate justice of the California Court of Appeal.

There he chaired the Advisory Commission to the Joint Legislative Committee on Judiciary Structure and was a founding member of the Western States Water Council and the Governor’s Water Law Commission in California. In 1973 he was named appellate judge of the year by the Los Angeles Trial Lawyers Assn. He retired in 1980 to teach at Southwestern.

Survivors include his wife, Virginia, three children and four grandchildren. Contributions can be made to the James Alexander Cobey Endowment Fund of the Constitutional Rights Foundation, 601 S. Kingsley Drive, Los Angeles 90005. Services will be private.