In
Healthy Perspective, today's DJ profiles 4/3's Justice Thomas Goethals.
- 18 months into his appointment, Goethals is
relishing the variety of cases and intellectual vigor the appellate court
brings.
- “He has everything you would want in a judge. He’s open-minded.
He’s temperate. He’s empathetic. He’s a student of the law. And the other thing
is he makes the calls according to his conscience,” said Justice Richard M.
Aronson, a longtime friend who was in the public defender’s office when
Goethals was in the district attorney’s office.
- Though he grew up in Glendale, Goethals and his three brothers
and four sisters — he’s the oldest — vacationed in Orange County as children,
and he was a fixture in Orange County Superior Court for decades. His father
was a Los Angeles County deputy public defender who then spent 40 years in
private practice, and Goethals graduated Loyola Law School knowing he wanted to
be in a courtroom.
- Goethals and his wife of 43 years, Patty, are high school
sweethearts who have three children and five grandchildren. One son is an
associate at Carroll, Kelly, Trotter, Franzen, McBride & Peabody in Long
Beach and another is a student at Chapman University Dale E. Fowler School of
Law.
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