How do judges of the California Court of Appeal reach the bench?

The court's current selection method is merit selection with retention.

California Court of Appeal / Joined 1969 / Served to 1987

George A. Brown

Presiding Justice, California Court of Appeal

George A. Brown was a Presiding Justice of the California Court of Appeal, who joined the court in 1969. Opinions & record ↓ Sources ↓

Tenure: 1969–1987 · 18 yrs

Judicial service

Year	Court	Appointed by	Vote
1969	California Court of Appeal	–	–
1971	California Court of Appeal	–	–
1972	California Court of Appeal	–	–

Judicial Record

In our data, Brown authored 13 published opinions for the court (1986–1987). Most cited: Southern Pacific Land Co. v. Westlake Farms, Inc. (35 citations).

Published, precedential opinions from the CourtListener corpus. Counts and rankings are objective and recomputable: how we count. We describe the record, not the judge. 13 of these were attributed to Brown by a unique court-, date-, and surname-match against our roster (marked ), because CourtListener recorded no author for them. Each links to the official text to verify. How we match.

Selected opinions

Year	Case	Citation	Cited
1987	Southern Pacific Land Co. v. Westlake Farms, Inc.†	188 Cal. App. 3d 807	35
1987	City of Fresno v. Maroot†	189 Cal. App. 3d 755	23
1987	Toyota of Visalia, Inc. v. New Motor Vehicle Board†	188 Cal. App. 3d 872	22
1986	Steve Schmidt & Co. v. Berry†	183 Cal. App. 3d 1299	19
1987	People v. Hinkley†	193 Cal. App. 3d 383	17
1987	Gilbert v. Superior Court†	193 Cal. App. 3d 161	13
1986	People v. Gonzales†	188 Cal. App. 3d 586	11
1986	People v. Matthews†	183 Cal. App. 3d 458	6
1986	County of Merced v. Dominguez†	186 Cal. App. 3d 1513	5
1987	People v. Jones†	189 Cal. App. 3d 398	3
1986	People v. Pendergrass†	182 Cal. App. 3d 63	2
1987	People v. Villines†	192 Cal. App. 3d 1298	1
1987	Tulare County Department of Public Social Services v. Shirley W.†	190 Cal. App. 3d 68	1

Showing the 13 most-cited of 13 authored opinions in our data. “Cited” is inbound citations across the CourtListener corpus. Case links open the ruling’s full text (CourtListener) or its page here; read the methodology and verify against the primary source.

Questions & answers

How do judges of the California Court of Appeal reach the bench?: The court's current selection method is merit selection with retention.
Which court was George A. Brown on?: George A. Brown was a Presiding Justice of the California Court of Appeal.

Sources

Each fact on this page traces to a primary public record.

How we source & reconcile data → Data & Sources

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18 years on the California Court of Appeal. Data as of 2026-03-31. Informational only; verify against the primary source before relying. Not a consumer report (FCRA).