User:Reward/Kevin McCarthy

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Judge Kevin M. McCarthy was elected to the Superior Court of San Francisco on 26 March 1996. Judge McCarthy was the first openly gay man in the U.S. become a judge by running for the position. Other gay judges had been appointed to fill vacant seats and had later stood for re-election. Judge Donna Hitchens, former Presiding Judge of the San Francisco Superior Court, was the first openly Lesbian judge in the U.S.

Judge McCarthy presided over the trial in which two men sued each other over the right to posess the 700th home run ball hit by Barry Bonds, of the San Francisco Giants. A documentary film, xxx, was made following the trial.

Judge McCarthy formerly was an attorney in the Alameda County Public Defender's Office, with ten year's experience, and tried more than 70 jury trials. He is also Adjunct Professor of Law at the University of California's Hastings Law School, and is serving his second term on the Board of Bay Area Lawyers for Individual Freedom, the region's Lesbian and Gay Bar Association.

Before his election, Judge McCarthy was active in San Francisco politics for more than a decade, and has a long history of community activism. He's served as a Boardmember of the Northern California Gay Rights Chapter of the American Civil Liberties Union, as a member of the San Francisco Citizen's Advisory Committee on Transportation, and as a Boardmember of the Lobby for Individual Freedom and Equality.

Judge McCarthy