SAN FRANCISCO — Fresh out of law school in 1964, Ronald George was hired into the California attorney general office’s by Stanley Mosk. Before long George would appear before Mosk at the California Supreme Court to defend the state’s death penalty law. George lost the historic case but had the last laugh, helping draft a ballot initiative that overruled the decision nine months later.
Fast forward a few decades and the roles would be reversed. As chief justice of California, George acted as Mosk’s boss for five years. Then in 2008, George helped make history by leading a 4-3 majority to strike down California’s ban on same-sex marriage. But the losers of that decision organized their own ballot initiative, Proposition 8, and overruled George’s decision.
