San Diego Criminal Justice Memorial
Honorees
A memorial directory honoring deceased judges, prosecutors, and defense attorneys who advanced criminal justice in San Diego County.
Peter J. Mazza
1978-2020
Peter Mazza was an outstanding lawyer, respected leader in the San Diego legal community, and cherished friend, father, and husband. As former Chief U.S. District Judge Larry A. Burns lamented, “Pete’s untimely death is a terrible loss to our legal community and to the world. . . . Pete inspired many people, and he leaves a legacy that all who knew him will remember and carry in their minds and hearts.”
Pete was born in Illinois and grew up in Connecticut. He attended Yale University, graduating cum laude and serving as captain of the football team. Pete earned his law degree from the University of Michigan Law School and began his legal career clerking for U.S. District Judge Marilyn L. Huff.
After his clerkship, Pete became an Assistant United States Attorney for the Southern District of California. While at the U.S. Attorney’s office, Pete prosecuted a variety of crimes, including those involving Mexican drug cartels and significant frauds. During this time, he established himself as a tenacious, effective, and conscientious prosecutor. Pete had a tireless work ethic, innate leadership skills, a principled approach to life, and a great sense of humor. He earned the respect of his colleagues and courtroom adversaries.
In 2014, Pete entered private practice at Jones Day, where he quickly became a partner and trusted friend and adviser to his colleagues and clients. “There was no case too big or legal issue too complex for Pete,” said attorney Shireen Matthews, who worked with Pete at Jones Day and the U.S. Attorney’s Office. “He was humble to the core but he possessed a steady self-confidence that drove him to just keep working until he figured out any legal challenge. And once he had the puzzle figured out, he had an amazing ability to explain complicated fact patterns in plain language. You knew when he spoke that he was a straight shooter.”
In 2019, at the request of U.S. Attorney Robert Brewer, Pete enthusiastically returned to the U.S. Attorney’s Office as the First Assistant United States Attorney, the second-in-command position in the office, and began the challenging work of supervising the office’s 400+ employees and overseeing its complex caseload. Despite receiving his shocking cancer diagnosis shortly after becoming the First Assistant, Pete was an inspiring leader and effective manager throughout his treatment. Bob Brewer observed that “Pete had great common sense, compassion, and a love of doing the right thing.” Assistant U.S. Attorney David Finn added that Pete “was a wonderful leader who genuinely treated others with respect. His dedication to service was inspiring to so many and made him not just a great lawyer, but a truly great person.”
Throughout his legal career, Pete devoted significant time to pro bono work and numerous legal and community organizations. Pete was very active in the San Diego Chapter of the Federal Bar Association, including serving as Chapter President in 2016, and served as a Lawyer Representative to the District Court for the Southern District of California. Additionally, Pete volunteered with his church to prepare care packages for families with children in the pediatric ICU at Rady Children’s Hospital and led fundraising efforts for the Peninsula YMCA in Point Loma to obtain scholarship funds for low income families. Posthumously, Pete received the FBA’s Robyn J. Spalter Award for Outstanding Achievement, which recognizes one attorney nationwide for significant contributions to the FBA, the legal profession, and the community, and the Hon. David Bartick Award for Civility and Professionalism awarded by the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of California.