2 longtime San Diego County judges retire

Two longtime San Diego County judges who served for decades have retired from the bench.

Judge Gale E. Kaneshiro, who presided over criminal and appellate cases, has retired after 30 years.

Judge Louis R. Hanoian, who presided over criminal matters, has retired from the bench after 27 years.

Kaneshiro said the highlight of her career was a jury trial script she prepared for new judges in the state who are beginning a criminal assignment. The guide is a resource for issues that may arise during trial.

"When I first took the bench 31 years ago, there was no readily available resource for judges conducting jury trials, so I created one. I believe it is the only resource of its kind in the state," said the judge in a statement.

Prior to joining the bench, Kaneshiro was a deputy district attorney and deputy city attorney. She obtained her law degree from Washington University Law School. Gov. George Deukmejian appointed her to the bench.

"Judge Kaneshiro has made a lasting imprint on the California judiciary," said San Diego County Presiding Judge Lorna Alksne. "She has devoted her judicial career to mentoring newer judges and her criminal trial jury script is an outstanding resource that is invaluable in complex criminal trials. She will be missed."

Alksne said Hanoian was "a mentor to all judges, on both evidence and ethical issues."

Last year, he was sat on a panel of Commission on Judicial Performance special masters in the misconduct hearing of 2nd District Court of Appeal Justice Jeffrey W. Johnson.

Hanoian retired at the end of last month and will continue to serve as an assigned judge on a part-time basis.

He was appointed by then-Gov. Pete Wilson to the municipal court in 1993 and elevated to the superior court by unification in 1998.

"I am honored, grateful and humbled to have had the opportunity to serve the cause of justice in California for the past 40 years, first as a deputy attorney general and more recently as a judge," Hanoian said in a statement.

Hanoian was a prosecutor in the 1980s under Deukmejian, when the future governor was attorney general. Hanoian successfully prosecuted the first man executed in California in 25 years, Robert Alton Harris, who murdered two teenage boys and died in the gas chamber in 1992. Hanoian presented arguments before the U.S. Supreme Court.

As a judge, he presided over more than 400 jury trials, including People v. William New, a case involving a man charged with killing two wives 30 years apart in two jurisdictions.

Hanoian received his undergraduate and master's degrees from Central Michigan University and law degree from the University of San Diego School of Law.

"No firm plans aside from sleeping in and interfering in my adult children's lives," the retired judge said in a statement.