Janice Brown appointed by governor to become first Black woman on California Supreme Court

Jet, April 29, 1996

Janice Rogers Brown, a judge with the California Court of Appeals, was recently appointed by Gov. Pete Wilson to the California Supreme Court.

Brown, 46, the daughter of an Alabama sharecropper, will be, upon confirmation, the first Black woman to ever serve on the seven-member, highest court in California. She is considered more conservative politically than most other justices recently appointed to the high court.

Brown received a bachelor's degree from California State University in Sacramento in 1974 and a law degree from UCLA in 1977 She was deputy secretary and general counsel for the California Business, Transportation and Housing Agency in 1987. She served as deputy attorney general for the state Department of Justice from 1979-87. Wilson appointed her as an associate justice of the state Court of Appeals in 1994. She had also served as Wilson's legal affairs secretary from 1991-94.

Because she has few published rulings and less judicial experience than some previous appointees, she was rated "unqualified" by the California State Bar Assn. However, she has won tremendous praise for her intellect and fairness.

Mrs. Brown, who lost her first husband to cancer, is married to jazz musician Dewey Parker. Her son, Nathan Allen Brown, 25, is in the Air Force.