Former judge, defense lawyer recalled as role model

Richard E. Orozco, a former judge and criminal defense attorney who was seen as a pioneer by other Latino attorneys, died Jan. 3 of heart failure. He was 88.

Orozco and his late wife's ashes will be interned together Feb. 16 at Fort Ord in Monterey Bay, where the former Santa Ana Municipal Court judge received military training as a young man, according to his son-in-law and Los Angeles County assistant public defender Ruben Marquez.

Orozco's commanding presence and stately style earned him the moniker, "The Godfather," from several colleagues, including Gary Meastas, who met Orozco in the early 1980s when he was a public defender in Orange County.

"[Latino attorneys] saw him as the person that forged a path for many of them to become criminal defense attorneys on the east side of the county," where Orozco was well known, Marquez said.

Former Los Angeles County Superior Court Judge Peter Espinoza called him a role model for young Chicano lawyers, who were sparse in Orange County in the early 1980s when they met.

Meastas agreed, saying that Orozco took him under his wing and showed him the ropes when he was just getting started as an attorney.

"Whenever I had a question, he'd always take the time to answer. And I had a lot of questions," Meastas said.

Born in Vernon on Oct. 1, 1929 to parents of modest means, Orozco joined the military at just 17. After serving in both World War II and the Korean War, he pursued higher education and became an aerospace engineer, working on planes and several space missions.

Sensing the decline in aerospace work, he began night school at Southwestern University Law School.

After passing the bar in 1970, he became an attorney specializing in labor relations mediation and civil law. In 1976, he was appointed to the municipal court bench in Santa Ana, where he served until 1980.

Following his stint on the bench, he pursued what became his primary legal passion: criminal defense work, Marquez said.

Marquez remembers sitting in on a capital case in downtown L.A. that his father-in-law was handling in the late 1980s.

"He was just tremendous," said Marquez, who was in law school at the time. "He was a quick thinker and had a very natural way about him."

Orozco handled many serious cases over his decades of practice, including capital murders, sex offense cases and DUI cases. Colleagues underscored that he was always a gentleman, in appearance and behavior.

"It just never escaped him that he came from a community where a lot of our defendants came from," Espinoza said. "He had a very good understanding of the clients and he was very compassionate, even with the worst of the worst."

Orozco served as an associate professor in the pre-law program at CSU Fullerton and the mock courtroom sessions at Western State University Law School.

He was preceded in death by his wife of 66 years, Amelia, in late 2016. He is survived by daughter Camille Marquez and sons Richard Jr. and Michael.