Honorees

Hon. Howard B. Turrentine

1914-2010

Howard Turrentine was a local boy, a San Diegan through and through.  Though he would travel the world far and wide, and serve others around the globe, for him, San Diego was always home and he never forgot his roots.  In 1914, the year he was born in Escondido, San Diego had a population of about 55,000. Most people came from somewhere else.  San Diego was a Navy town, without the Navy, if known at all, it was as a muddy backwater, the last place to gas up before crossing into Mexico.

Winds of change came the year Howard was born.  In 1914, a month after he was born, construction started on the Santa Fe Deport downtown.  Later that year the Marine Barracks established a model Marine camp on the Exposition Grounds in Balboa Park and John D. Spreckels gave his Organ Pavilion in Balboa Park to the people of San Diego.  The last day of 1914 ended with a cymbal clash when President Woodrow Wilson, standing in Washington D.C., pressed a Western Union telegraph key which turned on the lights and set off fireworks for the opening of the Panama-California Exposition in Balboa Park.

Howard attended local schools and graduated from San Diego State College with a Bachelor of Arts degree in 1936. At the urging of his uncle, Superior Court Judge Lawrence N. Turrentine, Howard enrolled in U.S.C. law school and graduated in 1939. As what Winston Churchill referred to as the “Gathering Storm” appeared on the horizon, Howard joined the Navy in May of 1941, seven months before the Japanese surprise attack on Pearl Harbor. He was sent to intelligence school and was cleared to receive ULTRA intelligence (decryptions of enemy message traffic). Lieutenant Turrentine served as intelligence officer aboard the Cruiser U.S.S. Phoenix, used by General Douglas MacArthur as his flagship for the invasion of the Admiralties Islands in March of 1944. Lieutenant Turrentine briefed General MacArthur on the Phoenix before the Admiralties Islands invasion. The Phoenix was later involved in the battle of Leyte Gulf, the largest naval battle of World War II, and by some criteria, possibly the largest naval battle in history.

He was awarded the Commendation Medal by Vice Admiral T.C. Kincade and Rear Admiral Russell R. Berkey for intelligence work during the Philippines Campaign and in preparation for the Battle of Surigao Strait. He received the Philippine Liberation medal with two stars, Asian Pacific Medal with one star, American Campaign Medal and the American Defense Medal. In April of 1945 he was assigned to the Office of Naval Intelligence in Washington, D.C. and was discharged in December, 1945.

He returned to San Diego in December of 1945 and opened up his own law practice. He was elected President of the San Diego Bar Association three years later, in 1948. After 20 years in private practice, he was appointed to the Superior Court by then Governor (future President) Ronald Reagan in 1968. Two years later, in 1970, President Richard M. Nixon appointed him to the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of California.

In 40 years on the bench Judge Turrentine heard many cases, not only in San Diego, but around the world, from American Samoa, Guam, Saipan, Houston, Tampa, Chattanooga, Brooklyn, and Manhattan.  He sat with the Ninth Circuit and the United States Military Court of Appeals. He made a lasting impression on lawyers who appeared in front of him as well as law clerks who worked behind the scenes.  They thought so much of him that they set up a fund in his name at the Gould School of Law at U.S.C., which among other things provides tuition and support for students from San Diego or ones who received their undergraduate education there.

He had a rugged, almost tough guy appearance.  First impressions of young lawyers was they were in for a hard time, but this proved not to be the case. Judge Turrentine didn’t bark and growl at young lawyers, he showed patience and tolerated rookie mistakes. He was well-mannered and listened. His reasoning was sensible, practical, he thought with his feet planted firmly in the ground. Four major cases, one involving water rights in the Imperial valley, another the constitutionality of extended border searches, another the interpretation of the Atomic Energy Act, and another whether a prosecutor was required to provide exculpatory information to a defendant before he were all reversed by the Ninth Circuit.  All four were appealed to the United States Supreme Court, which reversed the Ninth Circuit and affirmed Judge Turrentine.

He didn’t shy away from difficult cases. “He liked working on cases that were intellectually challenging,” his former law clerk and prominent attorney Bob Coffin observed. Chief Judge Irma Gonzalez called him a “great mentor” and someone she could go to whenever she had legal issues to discuss. Senior U.S. District Court Judge William Enright called him the “dean of our court,” and referred to him as “a wise and intelligent judge.” Retired District Court Judge Lawrence Irving said he was a “great role model for younger judges.”

When sworn in as a judge for the first time in 1968, Judge Turrentine said he hoped when all was said and done “lawyers will say that to practice in his court was a pleasant experience, that he was a fair and impartial judge, he was a good judge.”

So let it now be said: to practice in his court was a pleasant experience. He was a fair and impartial judge. He was a good judge.

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