48 Facts About Cruz Reynoso

Cruz Reynoso was an American civil rights lawyer and jurist.

Cruz Reynoso served on the California Third District Court of Appeal.

Cruz Reynoso served as vice-chairman of the US Commission on Civil Rights from 1993 to 2004.

In 2000, Cruz Reynoso received the Presidential Medal of Freedom, the United States' highest civilian honor, for his efforts to address social inequities and his public service.

Cruz Reynoso was born in Brea, California on May 2,1931.

Cruz Reynoso grew up as one of 11 children, and from age eight worked as an agricultural worker in orange groves.

When Cruz Reynoso was seven, the family moved to a barrio outside of La Habra, California.

Cruz Reynoso circulated a petition demanding service; the Postal Service responded to his petition and began providing mail delivery to the barrio.

Cruz Reynoso challenged the local school board about the Wilson School, after which the school was desegregated.

Cruz Reynoso received his Bachelor of Arts degree from Pomona College in 1953, after which he joined the US Army, serving in the Counterintelligence Corps for two years.

Cruz Reynoso was stationed in Washington, DC, where his assignments included reviewing the House Un-American Activities Committee files on potential applicants for Federal jobs, a task he found distasteful.

Cruz Reynoso received his Bachelor of Laws degree from the University of California, Berkeley, School of Law in 1958.

Cruz Reynoso began his career in private law practice in El Centro, California.

Cruz Reynoso served as a legislative assistant in the California State Senate.

Cruz Reynoso was an Associate General Counsel for the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission in 1967 and 1968.

Cruz Reynoso then served as deputy director of California Rural Legal Assistance in 1968.

Cruz Reynoso was a professor of law at the University of New Mexico School of Law from 1972 to 1976.

Cruz Reynoso was the first Latino appointed to the Court.

In 1982, Cruz Reynoso was up for reconfirmation: under a measure adopted in 1934, California voters confirm a governor's appointments, and periodic unopposed elections are held for each justice during general elections, giving voters the opportunity to vote a justice out of office.

Deukmejian, running as a Republican candidate for governor, urged voters to vote against justices Otto Kaus, Allen Broussard, and Cruz Reynoso; he hoped to replace them with conservative appointees, creating a new majority on the Court.

All three justices were retained; Cruz Reynoso received the lowest margin of victory, receiving the vote of only 52 percent of voters.

Also during the 1980s, Cruz Reynoso was a member of the Congressional Select Commission on Immigrant and Refugee Policy.

In May 1985, Cruz Reynoso cautioned about the negative effects of politicizing judicial elections.

Cruz Reynoso believed Governor Deukmejian's decision to oppose him, Bird, and Grodin was the most important factor in that election.

Cruz Reynoso's advisors told him that it would take three campaign ads to counteract one ad by his opponents; he and the other justices lacked the funds to compete with the campaign, raising a collective $3 million to the opposition's $7 million.

Cruz Reynoso, who had voted to uphold the state's death-penalty law, voted only once for a death sentence during his seven years on the court.

The Oxnard Press-Courier said in an editorial that Cruz Reynoso was Bird's "most consistent ally" and that "he has been second only to the chief justice in supporting decisions that favor criminal defendants over prosecutors".

Cruz Reynoso was endorsed by the California Organization of Police and Sheriffs.

Campaigns similar to the one expelling Bird, Grodin, and Reynoso have since been mounted against judges in other states, such as Justice Penny J White of Tennessee, who lost a retention election due to a death-penalty issue.

Cruz Reynoso worked on complex civil litigation, as an expert witness on legal ethics, and as a mediator.

Cruz Reynoso was a faculty adviser for the Chicano-Latino Law Review.

Cruz Reynoso was appointed the vice-chairman of the commission by President Bill Clinton on November 19,1993.

Cruz Reynoso was among the commissioners that looked into complaints that some eligible voters were denied the right to vote, or that votes were improperly counted, in Florida.

Berry and Cruz Reynoso maintained that their commissions were not due to expire until midnight on January 21,2005, but said in their resignation letters that it wasn't worth the fight.

In 2009, Cruz Reynoso spoke with UC Davis law students, noting that he has retired a few times, but was then chairing a citizens' commission investigating the death of Luis Gutierrez, a farm worker shot by police in Yolo County.

Cruz Reynoso suffered a broken collarbone, a punctured lung, and other injuries when a Hummer struck their rental car at an intersection, hospitalizing him for nine days.

Cruz Reynoso's wife suffered "grave injuries" to her brain and internal organs, requiring multiple surgeries.

Cruz Reynoso was initially cited for pulling out into the path of the Hummer, which had the right of way, but a judge dismissed the case.

Elaine Cruz Reynoso resigned from her position as a trustee of Sierra College in June 2011 to focus on recovering from her injuries; she has required extensive physical rehabilitation.

Cruz Reynoso served on the boards of directors of the Mexican American Legal Defense and Education Fund, the Natural Resources Defense Council, and Children Now.

Cruz Reynoso co-founded the Latino Issues Forum with Bob Gnaizda, and was chairman of its board of directors.

Cruz Reynoso was a trustee of the Garment Workers Trust Fund.

Cruz Reynoso served as the chair of a task force that investigated the UC Davis pepper-spray incident of November 18,2011.

Cruz Reynoso died on May 7,2021, five days after his 90th birthday; the cause of death was unknown.

Cruz Reynoso received the Hispanic Heritage Award in Education on September 7,2000, during a nationally televised presentation at the Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts.

Cruz Reynoso was honored with the University of California Davis Medal of Honor at a lifetime achievement event on September 15,2007, at the Mondavi Center.

Documentary filmmaker Abby Ginzberg produced the film Cruz Reynoso: Sowing the Seeds of Justice.

The City of Chicago passed a resolution honoring Cruz Reynoso that was presented to him while he was a visiting distinguished scholar at the John Marshall Law School in 2009.