Bernard S. Jefferson, 91; Respected Appellate Judge and Legal Scholar

Bernard S. Jefferson, a retired California appellate justice who was renowned as a legal scholar, educator and master of the law of evidence whose book on the subject is used by judges throughout the state, has died. He was 91.

A Baldwin Hills resident who was one of the first African Americans appointed to the state appellate courts, Jefferson died of pneumonia Saturday in a Los Angeles convalescent hospital.

Jefferson was appointed associate justice of Division 4 of the 2nd District Court of Appeal in 1975 to succeed his retiring brother, Justice Edwin L. Jefferson. He retired as presiding justice of Division 1 in 1980.

He had served a year on the Los Angeles Municipal Court and 15 years on the Los Angeles Superior Court, where his rulings included a landmark decision scrapping the state’s system of financing schools through local property taxes.

Jefferson ruled that the state’s method of school financing was unconstitutional because more money went to districts with high property values. The California Supreme Court upheld his ruling.

“He is regarded by everyone who knows him or knows of him as one of the great people in law. He was a giant,” said appellate Justice Norman Epstein.

Jefferson was one of the founders of the California Judges College, a two-week program for new judges held each year at UC Berkeley. It is considered the premier judicial education program in the country.

Based on the evidence course he taught in the program, Jefferson wrote the “California Evidence Benchbook,” a 957-page treatise published in 1972. A 1,900-page, two-volume second edition was published in 1982 and has been updated since then.

“He had the best command of the law of evidence of any judge that I’ve known,” Epstein said. “He was a master at it.”After retiring from the Court of Appeal at age 70--a decision he made because of a law that reduced justices’ benefits if they remained on the bench past that age--Jefferson returned to his lifelong love of teaching.

In 1982, he became president of the University of West Los Angeles Schools of Law and Paralegal Studies in Inglewood.

During his 12-year tenure as president, which included teaching courses in evidence and criminal procedure, Jefferson was instrumental in expanding the school’s curriculum.

“He came in at a critical time to provide the university with the benefit of his reputation and stature in the legal education community,” said Robert W. Brown, the university’s current president.

Brown said Jefferson served as mentor to countless students.

“He was always ready to help someone else and to engage in an understanding of the theory of the law,” Brown said. “And he could do it in a manner that could make it understandable to a common person. He was a master teacher.”

The youngest of four children, Bernard Samuel Jefferson was born June 29, 1910, in Coffeeville, Miss. His father was a carpenter, his mother a seamstress.

Living in a mainly white farming community where African American children were barred from attending school, the Jeffersons home-schooled their children. To improve their children’s educational opportunities, they moved first to Denver and then to Los Angeles, where Jefferson excelled academically.

A Gifted Orator in High School

At Manual Arts High School, he was a gifted orator and debater, and he graduated in 1927 as class valedictorian.

He was elected Phi Beta Kappa at UCLA, where he studied political science and graduated summa cum laude in 1931.

Jefferson received a scholarship to Harvard University Law School, where he received his law degree, cum laude, in 1934.

From 1935 to 1941, he served as a professor of law at Howard University School of Law in Washington, D.C. He returned to Harvard in 1941 to pursue graduate studies leading to his doctoral of juridical science in the field of evidence in 1943.

After serving as assistant general counsel in the Office of Price Administration in Washington from 1942 to 1946, he returned to Los Angeles and worked in private practice until his appointment in 1959 as a judge of the Municipal Court by Gov. Edmund G. Brown Sr.

“He was a man of enormous warmth and generosity,” Epstein said. “He dedicated a major portion of the royalties from his evidence book to judicial education.

“People tend to just love the man.”

Jefferson also devoted much of his life to the community.

In addition to serving on the board of directors of the Los Angeles Urban League and serving as its president for six years, he served as a trustee of the First A.M.E. Church of Los Angeles, and was on the board of managers of the Wilshire branch of the YMCA.

He also was district commissioner of the Boy Scouts of America, was on the regional board of directors of the National Council of Christians and Jews, and was a member of the Minority Employment Advisory Committee of the Department of Employment, in addition to serving with many other organizations.

Jefferson’s first wife, Devonia, died in 1946. He is survived by his wife of 43 years, Betty; his children, Cassandra Powell of Los Angeles and Dr. Roland S. Jefferson of Los Angeles; four grandchildren; and two great-grandchildren.

A funeral service will be at 4 p.m. Saturday at Angelus Funeral Home, 3875 S. Crenshaw Blvd., Los Angeles.

In lieu of flowers, donations may be made to the Bernard S. Jefferson Law Library, University of West Los Angeles School of Law, 1155 W. Arbor Vitae St., Inglewood, CA 90301-2902.