Biographical Note
Scope and Contents
Arrangement
Conditions Governing Access
Conditions Governing Use
Immediate Source of Acquisition
Processing Note
Preferred Citation
Language of Material:
English
Contributing Institution:
USC Libraries Special Collections
Title: Arthur L. Alarcón papers
creator:
Alarcón , Arthur L.
Identifier/Call Number: 7029
Physical Description:
103 Linear Feet
150 boxes
Date (inclusive): 1940-2014
Abstract: Arthur L Alarcón was a United States Circuit Judge of the United States Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit, to which
he was appointed in 1979 by President Jimmy Carter. He assumed senior status in 1992 and served until his death in 2015.
Earlier in his career, he had served as Deputy District Attorney for Los Angeles County, legal advisor/ Clemency and Extradition
Secretary to Governor Edmund G. "Pat" Brown (followed by his role as Executive Assistant), Superior Court judge for the County
of Los Angeles, and Associate Justice for the California Court of Appeals, Los Angeles.
The records in this collection span nearly 75 years of Alarcón 's life, including a small amount of his childhood and service
in the Army before he began his long and diverse career as a lawyer and judge. This collection contains files for hundreds
of legal cases in which he served in different capacities--some relatively minor cases and some very high-profile murder cases.
A large group of Administrative Files is comprised of a mix of subject files, speeches and reports, event and activity ephemera,
interviews, and other papers that are not official court documents.
Biographical Note
Arthur L Alarcón was a United States Circuit Judge of the United States Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit, to which he
was appointed in 1979 by President Jimmy Carter. He had a long and prominent career in law which began immediately following
law school graduation at the University of Southern California.
Born in 1925 in Los Angeles as the son of a baker from Mexico, Alarcón attended local schools and served in the U.S. Army
during World War II. He was the recipient of four Battle Stars and the Combat Infantry Badge, the Bronze Star, and a Purple
Heart. Upon returning to Los Angeles, he attended UCLA for two years on the G.I. Bill, and then transferred to USC where
he received his B.A. degree in political science and then law degree in 1951 from USC's School of Law.
Following graduation, Judge Alarcón was hired by the District Attorney's Office for Los Angeles and remained in that position
until 1961 when Governor Edmund G. "Pat" Brown appointed him legal advisor and Clemency and Extraditions secretary, in addition
to serving on the Governor's Special Commission on Narcotics (aka "Dope Commission"). From 1963 to 1964 Alarcón served as
the executive assistant responsible for investigations to assist the governor in deciding whether to commute death sentences
received by state prisoners. For a brief time, he served as chair of the California Adult Authority, the parole board for
men, a position he held until he was named to the Superior Court of California for the County of Los Angeles--a position
he held until 1978. From 1978 to 1979, Alarcón--appointed by Governor Jerry Brown, Jr.--served as an associate justice of
the California Court of Appeal for the Second Appellate District in Los Angeles.
It was in 1979 that the Republican Alarcón was nominated by then President Jimmy Carter for a seat on the Ninth Circuit bench,
becoming the first Latino to sit on the court. He served as an active judge until taking senior status in 1992. The longtime
judge presided over many noteworthy cases, including that of Sirhan Sirhan, convicted of assassinating Robert F. Kennedy.
Because he was so actively involved in a number of life or death decisions during his career, Alarcón conducted extensive
research on the efficacy of capital punishment and, in his later years, he pushed for an overhaul of the state's capital punishment
system, arguing that the average lag time between conviction and execution was twice the national average. An article that
Alarcón co-authored, "Executing the Will of the Voters?: A Roadmap to Mend or End the California Legislature's Multi-Billion
Dollar Death Penalty Debacle" appeared in a 2011 issue of the Loyola Law Review. A few years prior, the University of Southern
California Law Review printed his article titled "Remedies for California's Death Row Deadlock."
Known as an expert in criminal law, Alarcón authored many publications and held teaching assignments as adjunct professor
of law at Loyola Law School, University of Southern California, and Southwestern School of Law (where he received an honorary
Doctorate in Law Degree in 2007). He was a lecturer on criminal procedure for the California College of Trial Judges, and
lecturer on evidence in criminal matters for the National College of Trial Judges. Judge Alarcón filled in on other federal
courts across the country and took pride in participating in international judicial exchange programs, working with judges
in Chile and Argentina.
Alarcón's civic involvements included service on the boards of directors of such Hispanic groups as Las Familias del Pueblo,
Jardin de la Infancia, the Mexican-American Scholarship Foundation Assisting Careers in Law, and the Council of Mexican-American
Affairs. He also served on the boards of the Los Angeles Boys and Girls Club, Legal Aid Foundation, Performing Arts Council
for the Los Angeles Music Center, and the Junior League of Los Angeles. He was instrumental in broadening the mission of
the Los Angeles Boys Club, so that it became The Boys and Girls Club nationwide.
Judge Alarcón was active in promoting the advancement of women and Latinos in the legal field. In 2000, the Judge was head
of a committee tasked with having important buildings named after lawyers of modern importance, and he was instrumental in
having the criminal courthouse in downtown Los Angeles named after the first woman admitted to the California Bar, Clara Shortridge
Foltz. Foltz, a reformer and suffragist had litigated a series of cases that ultimately recognized women's right to attend
law school and sit for the California Bar.
Alarcón received many awards during the course of his career including the 2014 Judge of the Year Award from the Los Angeles
County Bar Association, and the Precursor Para Justicia/Pioneer for Justice Award from the Mexican American Bar Foundation
in 2010. In 2011, U.S. Supreme Court Justice Anthony M. Kennedy gave the keynote address at the dedication of the Alarcón
Advocacy Center at Loyola Law School in Los Angeles.
Alarcón passed away on January 28, 2015 at his home in Los Angeles after having been diagnosed with cancer the previous September.
He had celebrated his 50th year as a judge in 2014; most of that half-century of judicial service was as a federal appellate
judge. He had maintained a full caseload and continued to work for a time even after his diagnosis, never letting on to
colleagues about his illness.
Scope and Contents
This collection of Judge Alarcón's papers consists chiefly of case files and bench books spanning over forty years of his
career in various government and judicial positions. Accompanying the official court records are newspaper clippings and
Alarcón's research notes on specific cases such as the Robert Alton Harris case and the L. Ewing Scott case-- two high-profile
murder cases. The scrapbooks in the collection also contain some of Alarcón's childhood ephemera as well as career memorabilia
and materials related to his service during World War II.
Arrangement
The collection is organized into thirteen series, closely based on its original organization at the time of its donation to
USC. Within each series, the files are arranged in their original order which varies from series to series. For example,
most of the case files are arranged alphabetically according to the last name of the defendant; however the En Banc case files
(1980-1992) are arranged in order of case number, or roughly chronologically. The rather large and varied Administrative
Files series was kept in the original donation order, as this group of boxes was clearly labeled "Admin. Files--1 of 16, 2
of 16, etc."
Conditions Governing Access
Judge Alarcón's case files and case-related materials have a five-year blanket restriction. They will be available June 25,
2020. The non-case files are open for access.
Conditions Governing Use
All requests for permission to publish or quote from manuscripts must be submitted in writing to the Manuscripts Librarian.
Permission for publication is given on behalf of Special Collections as the owner of the physical items and is not intended
to include or imply permission of the copyright holder, which must also be obtained.
Immediate Source of Acquisition
Donated by Sandra Alarcón and the office of Judge Arthur L. Alarcón, June 25, 2015.
Processing Note
This collection was processed with the assistance of Shreya Sudhir Wagle and Jeet Mody.
Preferred Citation
[Box/folder# or item name], Arthur L. Alarcón papers, Collection no. 7029, Special Collections, USC Libraries, University
of Southern California
Subjects and Indexing Terms
Appellate courts -- United States -- Archival resources
Capital punishment -- California -- Archival resources
Criminal justice, Administration of -- California -- Archival resources
Criminal law -- United States -- Cases -- Archival resources
Habeas corpus -- United States -- Cases -- Archival resources
Judges -- California -- Archival resources
Judges -- United States -- Archival resources
Mexican Americans -- California -- Archival resources
Mexican-American judges -- California -- Archival resources
Trials (Murder) -- California -- Los Angeles -- Archival resources
Trials (Terrorism) -- California -- Los Angeles -- Archival resources
Briefs (legal documents)
Clippings
Legal correspondence
Legal documents
Scrapbooks
Alarcón , Arthur L. -- Archives
Billings, Warren K., 1893-1972 -- Archival resources
Harris, Robert Alton, 1953-1992 -- Archives
Mooney, Thomas J., 1882-1942 -- Archival resources
Ressam, Ahmed -- Archives
Scott, Leonard Ewing -- Archives
United States. Court of Appeals (9th Circuit) -- Archives