John Shepard Wiley Jr. faces a retention vote for his seat as associate justice on the California Court of Appeal, Second Appellate District, Division 8. The nonpartisan question appears on the Nov. 3 general election ballot.

Wiley previously served on the Los Angeles County Superior Court, the trial court for the county that includes Beverly Hills, Bel Air and Holmby Hills. The retention question is straightforward: keep him or not.

Candidate information

  • Office: California Court of Appeal associate justice, District 2, Division 8
  • Appointed by: Governor Jerry Brown, Nov. 27, 2018, succeeding Justice Laurence Rubin
  • Confirmed: California Commission on Judicial Appointments, Dec. 21, 2018
  • Education: A.B., University of California, Davis; master of arts in economics, University of California, Berkeley; juris doctor, University of California, Berkeley, Boalt Hall School of Law
  • Born: Iowa. Wiley's family moved to California when he was 12, and he attended public school from junior high through law school, according to the California Courts biography.

Experience and public service

Before joining the appellate bench, Wiley served as a Los Angeles County Superior Court judge from 2002 to 2018, according to the American Law Institute.

His career spans academia, federal service and private practice. Wiley was a tenured professor at UCLA School of Law from 1983 to 2005, where he won UCLA's Distinguished Teaching Award, according to the California Courts biography. He also taught at Harvard Law School, according to BallotReady profile data.

Wiley clerked for Judge Frank M. Coffin on the U.S. Court of Appeals for the First Circuit, according to the American Law Institute. He also clerked for Lewis F. Powell Jr., according to BallotReady. He served as counsel to the U.S. Senate Committee on the Judiciary and as an assistant and special assistant U.S. attorney, according to the American Law Institute.

He also worked as of counsel at Mayer, Brown & Platt. Wiley served as an examiner at the California Commission on Judicial Performance, according to the American Law Institute.

On the issues

No issue positions or policy statements from Wiley were available for this retention election.

Endorsements

No endorsements were supplied in the reviewed candidate materials.

Candidate information is drawn from the California Courts judicial biography, the American Law Institute profile and BallotReady election data. No candidate questionnaire responses were available for this profile.