Determined to Deliver on a Dream

Growing up in a working-class neighborhood of Los Angeles, Carlos Moreno, the son of Mexican immigrants, was determined to be the first in his family not only to go to college but to attend an Ivy League school.

Although he spoke little English when he entered kindergarten, Moreno worked hard to excel as a student, to make it to Yale University and Stanford Law School and, ultimately, to become a judge.

Last week, Gov. Gray Davis appointed the U.S. district judge to the California Supreme Court, putting him in position to be its first Latino justice in 12 years. He will be the court’s only Democrat if his appointment is approved, as expected, Oct. 17 by a judicial confirmation commission.

“Certainly, my dream has come true today,” the 52-year-old jurist said.

In his first interview since his appointment, Moreno said that he believes strongly in civil liberties and the right to privacy, and that he personally benefited from affirmative action. He could not discuss his personal views on various political issues because he may have to rule on them on the Supreme Court.

But his description of his life and background--from a working class family to Yale and Stanford to raising a disabled child--provide clues.

They suggest that he will be open-minded and supportive of social policies intended to help the underdog.

He is soft-spoken and genial, a judge who colleagues say is notable not only for his fair dealings and legal skills on the bench, but also for his kindness and gentle humor. He loves opera, and once sang with a small opera company.

Known as Chuckie to his family, Moreno grew up with his mother, Luisa Brucklnaier, her bachelor brother Jose, and four older brothers and sisters in a two-bedroom bungalow in Solano Canyon, a neighborhood down the hill from where Dodger Stadium now stands on the edge of downtown and bordered by Chinatown and the Los Angeles Police Academy.

His parents never married and split up when he was young. But he kept in touch with his father, Jesus Moreno, and worked weekends and summers at his store, Rancho Moreno Cheese and Produce, on Central Avenue. A brother, William Moreno, now owns it.

At Lincoln High School, Moreno had a friend whose older brother went to Harvard University. Moreno said that inspired him to aim for the best, even though school officials at that time were “happy if you went to a junior college or Cal State L.A.”

With the help of scholarships, loans, high test scores and straight A’s at Lincoln, Moreno graduated in 1970 from Yale, where he was one of only three Mexican Americans in a class of 1,000 and waited tables in a dining hall.

Moreno would not discuss his feelings about affirmative action, which California voters prohibited in government through the passage of Proposition 209. But he said he owes his start to efforts to encourage diversity.

“Even though they didn’t call it affirmative action back then, I think I am a direct beneficiary of it,” Moreno said. “But all the good evaluations I have received in all my offices, that doesn’t have anything to do with affirmative action.”

Between Yale and Stanford, Moreno worked for Los Angeles County’s welfare department “to save some money, buy a car and get some work experience.”

He decided to go to Stanford Law School because he thought the law offered flexibility in choosing a career and would put him “in a position to help other people.”

After Stanford, then-City Atty. Burt Pines hired Moreno as a deputy. Pines is now the governor’s judicial appointments secretary, and he led the search that culminated in Moreno’s selection.

After leaving government, Moreno worked for a civil law firm. A law partner who was politically active helped him land his first judgeship. Although Moreno was a Democrat, former Republican Gov. George Deukmejian appointed him to the municipal court in Compton in 1986.

Moreno said then-state Sen. Ken Maddy, a Republican, knew one of his half brothers and helped bring the attorney to Deukmejian’s attention.

Gov. Pete Wilson, another Republican, elevated Moreno to the Los Angeles Superior Court in 1975. The judge worked in the criminal courts, but never presided over a death penalty case.

While serving in federal court after his appointment by President Bill Clinton, Moreno presided over a variety of cases. He said one of the more memorable involved his blocking the deportation of a 15-year-old Romanian girl who had been sexually abused by her father.

The teenager had been declared a state ward and placed in foster care, when a children’s court commissioner ordered that she be sent back to her mother in Romania. Testimony indicated that her mother didn’t want her.

Although Moreno’s ruling in the case was not published in the law books, he said that making the decision was one of his most satisfying moments.

“I was glad to be a federal judge and to stop her de facto deportation,” he said.

Moreno, as the 111th California Supreme Court justice, will be its third Latino. Justice Cruz Reynoso, the first Latino on the court and also a Democrat, was defeated for retention in 1986. Justice John Arguelles, a Republican, served for two years until 1989.

“He will be an instant role model,” Arguelles said. “If he tells people how he came up from a modest background, I think he can inspire a lot of these children to do the same thing.”

Moreno lives in Eagle Rock with his wife, Christine, a professor of art who teaches animation and the history of animation at East Los Angeles College.

Their daughter, Keiko, 24, works part time as a personal assistant to a Lucille Ball celebrity look-alike and studies sociology at Cal State Los Angeles. Their son, Nicholas, 15, is a high school sophomore.

Moreno’s mother-in-law, Delores Fenton, lives in a guest house on their property, and they recently took in a 6-year-old niece, Heather, who has pervasive developmental delay, a form of autism.

Moreno does not want to uproot his family, at least until his son graduates from high school. He will live in San Francisco, where the court is based, during the week and return to Los Angeles on the weekends. “All my roots are down here.”

‘Even though they didn’t call it affirmative action back then, I think I am a direct beneficiary of it.’