Roger J. Traynor

Roger J. Traynor

Roger John Traynor (February 12, 1900 – May 14, 1983) served as the 23rd Chief Justice of California from 1964 to 1970, and as an Associate Justice from 1940 to 1964. A nationally respected jurist, Traynor's 30-year career as California's 77th Justice coincided with tremendous demographic, social, and governmental growth in California and in the United States of America, and was marked by a belief (in the words of his biographer, G. Edward White) that "the increased presence of government in American life was a necessary and beneficial phenomenon."