5th DCA Presiding Justice James A. Ardaiz will retire this year, at the end of his term, reports the Met News.Cheryl Miller at the Recorder notes PJ Ardaiz is credited with "eliminating the appellate court's backlog in the mid-1990s and spearheading the construction of the court's new home in 2007."
PJ Ardaiz is also well-known, Miller reports, for his "numerous articles supporting the death penalty and the state's Three Strikes law, which he helped write. In 1994, when he stepped forward to acknowledge he was one of three judges who helped shape the law, Ardaiz told the Los Angeles Times that his motivation was "'very simple: I want to see [California] be a better place to live. I want it to be a safer place to live.'"
(h/t Ben Shatz)
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