Charles C. Bernstein (June 2, 1904 – April 29, 1976) was a justice of the Supreme Court of Arizona from January 5, 1959 to January 4, 1969. He served as chief justice from January 1962 to December 1963, and from January 1967 to December 1967.Judge Charles C. Bernstein (1904-1976)
, Superior Court of Arizona in Maricopa County.

Early life and education

Born in

St. Louis, Missouri St. Louis () is the second-largest city in Missouri, United States. It sits near the confluence of the Mississippi River, Mississippi and the Missouri Rivers. In 2020, the city proper had a population of 301,578, while the Greater St. Louis, ...

, Bernstein received an LL.B. from Southwestern University in Los Angeles in 1929, and was admitted to the Arizona Bar the following year.

Career

Bernstein served as Assistant Attorney General for Arizona from 1937 to 1939, and was a Delegate to the

Democratic National Convention The Democratic National Convention (DNC) is a series of presidential nominating conventions held every four years since 1832 by the United States Democratic Party. They have been administered by the Democratic National Committee since the 1852 ...

in 1940 and 1944. From 1946 to 1948, he was secretary of the Democratic State Central Committee. In 1949 he was appointed as a Superior Court Judge in Arizona, becoming "the first Jewish judge in Arizona history", where he "achieved a national reputation as a juvenile court judge". On May 5, 1954, Bernstein ruled that segregation of African-American students in Phoenix's

Wilson Elementary School District The Wilson Elementary School District is a small elementary school district in Phoenix, Arizona Phoenix ( ; nv, Hoozdo; es, Fénix or , yuf-x-wal, Banyà:nyuwá) is the capital and most populous city of the U.S. state of Arizona, with 1, ...

was a violation of the 14th Amendment in
Heard vs. Davis
'. At the time, the U.S. Supreme Court was preparing to decide '' Brown v. Board of Education'', and the Supreme Court requested a copy of Judge Bernstein's opinion. On May 17, 1954, the Supreme Court announced its decision in Brown, that the doctrine of "separate, but equal" was unconstitutional. Bernstein was elected to the Supreme Court of Arizona in 1958, taking office the following January. In 1967, Bernstein and Governor Jack Williams, called a citizens' conference on Arizona courts, which resulted in a permanent organization called The Citizens' Association on Arizona Courts, "whose primary goal was the establishment of a system for the merit selection of judges." In 1974, Arizona passed a constitutional amendment providing for the merit selection of judges, except superior court judges in counties with a population of 150,000 or more.Mark I. Harrison, Sara S. Greene, Keith Swisher, Meghan H. Grabel, ''On the Validity and Vitality of Arizona's Judicial Merit Selection System: Past, Present, and Future'', 34 Fordham Urb. L.J. 239, 242–43 (2007) Bernstein died in Phoenix, Arizona.

Publications

* ''Disposition of Civil Appeals in the Supreme Court'', 5 Ariz.L.Rev. 175 (Spring 1964).

References

External links

Portrait

1958 Campaign Photo
in ''El Sol'' Justices of the Arizona Supreme Court 1904 births 1976 deaths Southwestern Law School alumni Lawyers from St. Louis Chief Justices of the Arizona Supreme Court 20th-century American judges 20th-century American lawyers {{US-state-judge-stub