Jay Rabinowitz; Judge Legalized Marijuana Use in Private Homes

Jay Andrew Rabinowitz, 74, the Alaska Supreme Court justice best remembered for legalizing marijuana use in private homes, died of cancer June 16 in Seattle.

Rabinowitz, a Philadelphia native educated at Syracuse and Harvard universities, moved to Alaska in 1958 and worked for two years as a prosecutor. He was appointed to the Alaska Superior Court in 1960 and elevated to the neophyte state’s Supreme Court in 1965.

In 32 years on the high court, in which he often rotated as chief justice, Rabinowitz wrote more than 1,200 decisions, greatly influencing the development of Alaska’s state laws.

He tackled the marijuana question in 1975, determining in an oft-cited 54-page decision that Alaska’s constitutional privacy provision permitted use of the drug in the privacy of the user’s home. That decision was never reversed or modified, but both the Alaska Legislature and a referendum have since banned marijuana use.