A Friend of Justice

Rose Elizabeth Bird was a pioneering public official and jurist who was driven from office on a single issue: her opposition to the death penalty. Appointed by Gov. Jerry Brown as chief justice of the California Supreme Court in 1977, Bird lasted nine years before she was turned out of office by voters by an overwhelming margin.

At her death Saturday, at 63, Bird was a virtual recluse who did volunteer work for the poor and the blind. She had battled breast cancer off and on since 1976. In a 1987 interview, Bird said she would like to be remembered for two things: “That she cared and that she tried to be a good person.”

But Rose Bird deserves to be remembered for far more than that. As one of the state’s first female Cabinet members, as state agriculture secretary, she negotiated the landmark farm labor law giving workers the basic right to bargain for wages and job conditions.

At 40, she became the first woman on the state Supreme Court, preceding Sandra Day O’Connor’s elevation to the U.S. Supreme Court by three years.

Bird was commended by legal scholars for writing opinions that were solidly researched and legally reasoned. But because she had no prior judicial experience, foes and some friends agreed that Brown had made her road tougher by raising her so quickly to the court’s top spot.

Her rulings advanced the rights of the poor, minorities, consumers, tenants and criminal defendants--positions that now are widely accepted.

Bird opposed the death penalty on principle and voted to overturn every such case that came before the court. She became a lightning rod for conservative activists, who succeeded in ousting her with a poisonous campaign in 1986.

There was far more to it than the death penalty, however. Bird had a private, prickly side that was portrayed by her foes as arrogance. In the Cabinet and on the court, she was not just a pioneering woman, she was a forceful figure in cultures that often had functioned more like men’s clubs.

Sadly, she was not judged on her dedication to legal principle and her efforts to win a fair shake for the disadvantaged in society. Today, we remember Rose Bird as someone who cared deeply about justice and suffered unfairly for it.