Despite being elected by his peers as new presiding judge of the Sacramento Superior Court, Judge James Mize ’68, M.S.W. ’71 is quick to deflect attention away from his success.
“I’m incredibly privileged to be working with such fantastic judges and staff,” he says. “I just want to get out of their way and let them do their jobs.”
Known for his integrity, vision, and spirited creativity — the court’s executive officer joked that he was limited to one new idea a day — Mize never imagined as a Cal student that he would some day occupy the bench. “I wanted to smash atoms with Berkeley’s cyclotron,” he says.
But when an instructor who had been arrested in a protest told him that sometimes you have to take a stand, Mize turned to psychology as an undergraduate, then got a master’s in social welfare. When he still didn’t have “the hammer” he needed, he went to law school. He was in private practice for 26 years before then-Governor Gray Davis named him to the bench in 2000.
During his two-year term, Mize aims to update the aging courthouse with new technology, enabling lawyers to present their cases using multimedia tools. He is also trying to find space for 11 judges expected to come on board, a daunting task considering the state’s fierce budget deficit.
Outside of the courtroom, Mize is equally civic-minded. As the cofounder of Sharing God’s Bounty at St. Philomene Parish, Mize has been dishing up hot dinners to the poor and homeless every Tuesday night that he’s in town since 1983.
“You can’t be expected to make something of your life when you’re hungry,” he says. “We like to say that we serve dignity here.”
Whether serving up sentences or meals, Mize still recalls his Berkeley days when he wanted to “make the world a better place.”
