LAKE COUNTY, Calif. – A longtime Lake County Superior Court judge who during retirement had continued to take up complex legal cases around the state has died.
John Joseph Golden of Lakeport, who presided over Lake County Superior Court Department 1 from 1974 to 1994, died on Sunday, Nov. 18, at Queen of the Valley Hospital in Napa following a sudden illness. He was 87 years old.
Golden’s passing brought to an end a remarkable life, much of it devoted to public service and a six-decade legal career.
“He loved the law and he loved what he did,” said his son, John, who recalled that people almost invariably found his father fair, even if they were on the losing end of his decisions.
Golden was remembered by friends and family as a renaissance man who recited poetry, loved history and had a marvelous sense of humor, and who enjoyed taking breaks from his heavy professional load to enjoy the outdoors.
He also was a loving father who spent time camping, fishing and shooting with his children, and being a role model for the kind of responsible and self-sufficient people he wanted them to become.
Retired Lake County Superior Court Department 2 Judge Robert Crone called Golden “a wonderful man” and “a tremendous judge.”
Known as “Jack” to his friends, Golden retired from the Lake County Superior Court bench in 1994 yet continued to take special judicial assignments all over the state.
Golden only stopped taking those assignments in 2010, when he could no longer perform to his own standards, said his son. “He had very high standards for law and for all judges, including himself.”
John J. Golden was born in Long Beach. Like many children of the Great Depression, he and his siblings would be sent to live with family members who could help support them, and he ended up spending part of his childhood in Ukiah, according to his son.
He later would serve in the U.S. Navy in the Pacific during World War II; his brothers also served during the war, one in the Marines and the other in the Army.
At one point Golden intended to become an engineer, but changed his mind and went on to graduate from the University of Oklahoma in 1947 with a major in English and minor in Spanish.
He attended the University of California’s Boalt Hall and received his law degree in 1950. After receiving his law degree, Golden had decided to leave California and was in the process of doing so when he experienced what his son called a “defining moment.”
“One evening shortly before he was due to leave, he was in San Francisco, in the company of a lady, looking out over the bay and the Berkeley Hills over a gin martini, and decided that California was the place he wanted to be,” son John Golden said.
He was admitted to the California and federal courts in 1950 and the same year went into general legal practice in Ukiah with the firm Rawles, Nelson and Golden.
It was in 1952 that Golden and Dan Grothe – who had known each other in grammar school in Ukiah – became friends, following a case in which Golden represented Grothe and some other homeowners in a suit against a developer who failed to follow through on guaranteeing home loans at a 4 percent rate.
Golden won the case but wouldn’t take any money. “I began taking him hunting and fishing with me and also wood cutting,” said Grothe, who now lives in Oklahoma.
“Jack and I became career wood cutters,” said Grothe, noting that time outdoors was a welcome departure from Golden’s legal workload. It would remain an important outlet in the years to come, as the rigors of Golden’s career became more intense.
When Grothe later went to Idaho to farm potatoes, he said Golden and his first wife, Catherine, came up and helped plant the first crop.
From 1967 to 1970 Golden served on the State Bar of California Board of Governors, was State Bar vice president from 1969 to 1970 and served on the California Board of Legal Specialization from 1970 to 1974.
He also was counsel for the Russian River Flood Control District in a case involving negotiating water rights for the Coyote Dam, his family said.
Becoming a judge
Lake County Superior Court Judge Ralph Devoto, who had been on the bench since 1961, retired in June of 1974, to be succeeded by Golden, appointed by then-Gov. Ronald Reagan.
Crone recalled that during his tenure Golden would have only one challenger for his seat, and that was attorney Phil Crawford, whose family included county pioneers.
Despite Crawford’s deep roots and the efforts to portray Golden as a carpet bagger who hadn’t lived in the county at the time of his appointment, Golden won that first election after his appointment, and was never opposed afterward, Crone said.
For the first decade of Golden’s time on the bench, he was the only Lake County Superior Court judge, said Crone.
Sitting in what were Golden’s chambers on the fourth floor of the Lake County Courthouse in Lakeport, overlooking Clear Lake, Crone explained that at the time Golden became judge there were six justice courts – located in Middletown, Clearlake, Upper Lake, Lakeport, Kelseyville and Lower Lake – that handled misdemeanors, traffic, unlawful detainers, small claims and lawsuits of under $10,000.
The superior court handled everything else – felony and probate matters, family law, juvenile, dependency and delinquency cases, lawsuits of $10,000 and above, and extraordinary writs, Crone said.
“He was one person facing that caseload,” Crone said.
Grothe, Golden’s close friend of 60 years, said when Golden was first appointed in 1974, there was an enormous case backlog due to Devoto having been ill.
“Jack worked night and day for probably the first year, year and a half, two years, to get the calendar current, which he did,” Grothe said.
Crone said the county was changing in the 1970s and 1980s, with the population rising due to work available at the Homestake Gold Mine and The Geysers, and Hidden Valley Lake being rejuvenated. There also was more resort activity than there is today.
In a small superior court like Lake County’s, “You have to know something about everything,” said Crone.
Golden thoroughly understood the law, said Crone. “He held you to it. You couldn't slip anything by him. If you tried to, you did it at your own peril.”
Golden would respond to that immense caseload by insisting on efficiency, said Crone, who credited him with being a pioneer in the concepts of case management that today are standard.
“His obligation was to manage all the cases efficiently so everybody could get into the courtroom and have their say and have their case decided in a timely manner,” said Crone.
Crone said Golden instituted a form of delay reduction that became a statewide court policy. Golden himself had taken a hand in management case load and flow, and wouldn’t let cases languish.
Golden expected lawyers to be on time, prepared and efficient in handling their cases. “His principle was that you don't do anything in the courtroom that can be done outside the courtroom,” said Crone.
Dignity and respect for all who came into his courtroom were important to Golden, said Crone.
When juveniles were brought in for court in tattered clothing, he insisted to county officials that they be attired in clean, institutional clothing, Crone said.
When an attorney attempted to charge a widow an outrageous $20,000 up front fee for a probate case, the attorney got a stern talking-to in court from Golden, who told him he could either work the case for free or be reported to the State Bar. Even though the estate was a large one, the attorney ended up without his fee, Grothe recalled.
Golden was very ethical, Grothe said. “He expected all the attorneys to be the same.”
In 1975, Golden performed his first marriage ceremony, that of Crone and his wife, Connie.
Crone later served as Lake County’s district attorney form 1977 to 1984. “I tried a lot of cases in his court,” said Crone.
Changes for the courts
Golden had a formidable intelligence, and the gift of being able to look at a complex case and boil it down to its essence, without getting distracted by unnecessary details. “That’s really a great talent to have,” said Crone.
Thanks to having been an English major, Golden also was a good writer, and wrote opinions that were great reading and, in some cases, works of art, said Crone.
Golden continued to carry that caseload by himself until 1984, when Lake County Superior Court’s Department 2 was created.
“That’s where I come in,” said Crone, who presided in that department until his retirement in 2004. Crone continues to hear cases today, with Judge Richard Martin having succeeded him as Department 2’s judge in 2005.
All justice courts eventually would be consolidated with superior courts as a result of Proposition 220 in 1998.
“That’s how you wind up with four departments,” Crone added.
While he was district attorney, Crone said he had seen Golden’s professional personality, that of a dignified man who was reserved, unemotional and straightforward. “He would have been a great poker player.”
It was only after he became a judge, and therefore Golden’s colleague, that Crone witnessed the other side of Golden – a man of sparkling wit, charm, a good sense of humor and a gift for storytelling.
“I saw the side that most people unfortunately didn’t get to see,” Crone said, admitting that even then, out of respect, he struggled with calling Golden by his first name.
The two men worked together on a daily basis for 10 years, and Crone recalled Golden mentioning that it was good to have someone to talk to about his work and the law.
Being a judge, said Crone, “is a very lonely position,” and one that is heavily constrained by complex ethical canons. It takes another judge to fully comprehend those challenges.
When a judge initially takes the bench, they don’t have a style. “That’s all developed,” said Crone, crediting Golden for influencing his style and that of many of the local judges who followed him.
“You couldn’t help but be influenced, and he taught you good habits,” Crone said.
Stephen Hedstrom also would serve as district attorney during Golden’s time on the bench.
“He was a very, very intelligent judge,” said Hedstrom, now a judge himself in Lake County Superior Court Department 4.
In the process of presenting cases in Golden’s court, “I learned a lot from him,” said Hedstrom.
“What stands out in my mind is he demanded that lawyers be well prepared, but you always knew that he had done his homework before calling your case,” Hedstrom said.
While he had an impact on another generation of judges, Golden also appreciated history and respected those who had come before him.
Crone remembered Golden helping to spearhead the effort to save the county’s old courthouse – today the Courthouse Museum in downtown Lakeport – when there had been a proposal to tear it down in the 1970s.
In April 1984, Golden organized a portrait hanging reception in his courtroom for the five Lake County Superior Court judges who had preceded him: Rodney J. Hudson, Richard V. Crump, Morton Sayre Smith, Benjamin Charles Jones and Ralph Devoto. Those portraits remain in place today.
In 1986, while continuing to remain busy with his local duties, Golden was appointed to the California Judicial Council Advisory Commission on Justice in Rural Counties.
He continued to preside in Department 1 until 1994, when he retired. David Herrick ran for the seat and won it. Herrick announced earlier this year that he was retiring at year’s end, and Lakeport attorney Michael Lunas was elected in November to succeed to the Department 1 bench.
Retired but busy
Even after retiring, Golden stayed active, sitting on assignments for the chief justice all over California, and conducting mediations and arbitration, his son said.
In 1997, he presided in Mendocino County in the trial of Bear Lincoln, who was acquitted after having been accused of killing a sheriff’s deputy in April 1995 on the Round Valley Reservation.
In a 1999 Humboldt County court, he issued a ruling in a suit filed by the Sierra Club over the acquisition of the Headwaters Forest, striking down the deal’s yield pan, which environmentalists had said was unsustainable.
Golden continued to produce a lot of work, and in later years developed a specialty in highly complex and time consuming administrative mandamus cases, said Crone. “He was sought after to hear those kinds of cases.”
Retirement gave him some time for stepping away from legal work. Son John said his father loved road trips and enjoyed exploring parts of Northern California and driving to Arizona to see baseball spring training.
Golden would be present for swearing in ceremonies of new judges. Most recently, during the 2010 ceremony for Judge Andrew Blum, Golden offered one sentence of advice: “When in doubt, remain silent.”
Both Hedstrom and Crone last saw Golden this past July 4.
“He seemed like he was doing well. He seemed very happy,” said Hedstrom.
Golden was preceded in death by his wife of 34 years, Gail E. Golden, who died in 2006. He is survived by his children, Mary, Carol, Todd, John, and Hilary; his grandchildren, Peter, Asa, Nils, Zoe, Jack, Stephanie and Andrew, a cadet at Annapolis; and his loving partner, Janice Stokes.
“He'll be missed by the bench and he'll be missed by his friends and family,” said Crone.
At Golden’s request, no memorial service will be held. His son said Golden was not about pomp and ego, and would want to be remembered for the way he conducted his life and career.
“The impact that he’s had on the community is what speaks for him,” Golden’s son said.
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