Lawrence K. Karlton (May 28, 1935 – July 11, 2015) was a

United States district judge The United States district courts are the trial courts of the United States federal judiciary, U.S. federal judiciary. There is one district court for each United States federal judicial district, federal judicial district, which each cover o ...

of the United States District Court for the Eastern District of California in

Sacramento ) , image_map = Sacramento County California Incorporated and Unincorporated areas Sacramento Highlighted.svg , mapsize = 250x200px , map_caption = Location within Sacramento ...

California California is a U.S. state, state in the Western United States, located along the West Coast of the United States, Pacific Coast. With nearly 39.2million residents across a total area of approximately , it is the List of states and territori ...

Education and career

Born in

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in 1935, Karlton received a

Juris Doctor The Juris Doctor (J.D. or JD), also known as Doctor of Jurisprudence (J.D., JD, D.Jur., or DJur), is a graduate-entry professional degree in law and one of several Doctor of Law degrees. The J.D. is the standard degree obtained to practice law ...

from Columbia Law School in 1958, at the age of 23. He was in the

United States Army The United States Army (USA) is the land service branch of the United States Armed Forces. It is one of the eight U.S. uniformed services, and is designated as the Army of the United States in the U.S. Constitution.Article II, section 2, cla ...

from 1958 to 1960 as a private (E-2), and was a Civilian legal officer at the Sacramento Army Depot from 1960 to 1962. He was in private practice in

Sacramento ) , image_map = Sacramento County California Incorporated and Unincorporated areas Sacramento Highlighted.svg , mapsize = 250x200px , map_caption = Location within Sacramento ...

from 1962 to 1976, and also litigated civil liberties cases as a volunteer lawyer for the

American Civil Liberties Union The American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) is a nonprofit organization founded in 1920 "to defend and preserve the individual rights and liberties guaranteed to every person in this country by the Constitution and laws of the United States". T ...

. He was appointed by California Governor

Jerry Brown Edmund Gerald Brown Jr. (born April 7, 1938) is an American lawyer, author, and politician who served as the 34th and 39th governor of California from 1975 to 1983 and 2011 to 2019. A member of the Democratic Party, he was elected Secretary of S ...

as a judge of the Superior Court of California, where he served from 1976 to 1979.

Federal judicial service

On June 5, 1979, President

Jimmy Carter James Earl Carter Jr. (born October 1, 1924) is an American politician who served as the 39th president of the United States from 1977 to 1981. A member of the Democratic Party (United States), Democratic Party, he previously served as th ...

nominated Karlton to a seat vacated by Judge Thomas Jamison MacBride on the United States District Court for the Eastern District of California. He was confirmed by the

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on July 23, 1979, and received his commission on July 24, 1979. He served as Chief Judge from 1983 to 1990, and as Chief Judge

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until assuming

senior status Senior status is a form of semi-retirement for United States federal judges. To qualify, a judge in the Federal judiciary of the United States, federal court system must be at least 65 years old, and the sum of the judge's age and years of servi ...

on May 28, 2000, serving in that status until his death.

Notable cases

Karlton, along with Judges Stephen Reinhardt and

Thelton Henderson Thelton Eugene Henderson (born November 28, 1933) is an inactive Senior United States district judge of the United States District Court for the Northern District of California. He has played an important role in the field of civil rights as a la ...

, was a member of a special three-judge panel overseeing overcrowding in the California prison system. On April 5, 2013, Judge Karlton ruled in a 68-page decision against Governor Brown that, "this court finds that ongoing constitutional violations remain in this action and the prospective relief ordered by this court remains necessary to remedy those violations." On June 20, 2013, Judge Karlton, along with Reinhardt and Henderson, ordered Governor Brown to expand

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" good-time credits" which would permit inmates to finish their prison sentences prematurely. They demanded that action be taken immediately, and that any laws that might prevent the early release of the inmates be ignored.

Retirement and death

During his criminal calendar on February 25, 2014, Judge Karlton announced that he would stop hearing cases at the end of August 2014. He died on July 11, 2015, in Sacramento.

References

Sources