Friday, May 14, 2010 | 2:01 a.m.
Former Nevada Supreme Court Chief Justice Al Gunderson died Thursday afternoon. Our hearts go out to his family and especially his loyal wife and partner, Lupe. On March 9, 1989, I wrote a column about a retirement party for Al when he left the Supreme Court after three terms. I believe it gives a little flavor of the man to those who didn’t know, or know of, him. For those who knew him, here’s a little nostalgia for a legal giant we were lucky to have in our midst. By the way, he fought right up until his last breath.
Al Gunderson does not go gently into the good night of retirement.
To Nevada Supreme Court watchers who have followed the career of the former chief justice for the past 18 years, it is no surprise because the good judge never went gently anywhere, day or night.
Last week, Gunderson’s “low friends” (a term of endearment for his longtime buddies in the Jaycees) threw a retirement party for the judge’s “high” friends who turned out in record numbers to say goodbye to a man who has given all he had to justice in the state of Nevada.
Al Gunderson, who was felled by a heart attack in January shortly after he left the high court, is not slowing down in his legal pursuits. Fulfilling a longtime dream, he has accepted a professorship at Southwestern University Law School in Southern California.
There he’ll be able to help shape young legal minds into the kind of scholars he worked diligently to bring to the Nevada judiciary. His efforts, however, were not always successful, but they were always 100 percent.
The party at the Sands was typical of the hardworking and hard-playing judge who launched his political career in some Jaycee watering hole and ended it at the pinnacle of Nevada jurisprudence. The stature he attained as a leader on the Supreme Court was evident in the people who turned out to pay tribute to Judge Gunderson.
Former Govs. Mike O’Callaghan and Bob List both shared a few words of kindness about the man with whom they served on the Nevada Pardons Board, a job where you really learn the value of liberty and freedom. Nevada’s current chief justice, Cliff Young, provided the roomful of well-wishers with enough anecdotes about Al Gunderson to last a lifetime of social gatherings.
The night was good fun and good fellowship. And the night belonged to Al Gunderson.
When it was his turn to return the fondness evident within the stories told by his friends and colleagues, he did just that with the same deep sense of humor that served him so well on the Supreme Court for three full terms.
During the judge’s tenure, the Nevada Supreme Court reeled through some of its darkest days when national attention was focused on Nevada justice run amok. Gunderson’s tenacity helped lead the court out of danger and into some of its most prestigious decisions. His own ability to laugh through the bad times made his otherwise arduous task bearable.
Through the good times and bad, Al Gunderson took the heat because he was the acknowledged leader. He was a judicial activist, not in the derogatory Ronald Reagan sense of the word, but in his desire to lead the court into a more prominent role in the Nevada judiciary.
That same activism — that willingness to get out in front of an issue that was important to the people of Nevada — was very much evident last week when Gunderson took the podium to thank his well-wishers.
There were a few notable members of the legal community who were conspicuously absent from the festivities. Northern Nevada members of the Board of Bar Governors, who have been critical of the court for its ruling in the Harry Claiborne matter, were not present.
Neither was local attorney Steve Morris or his law partners at Lionel and Sawyer. Morris was lambasted in papers filed by Gunderson in the Supreme Court last month, which labeled Morris a “loser” and other not-so-pleasantries. Gunderson’s brief was filed to respond to attacks Morris made on Gunderson’s wife, Lupe, in what seems to be an ill-fated attempt to attack a unanimous Supreme Court decision against a wealthy Morris client.
They didn’t have to be present that night, though, because Judge Gunderson’s verbal assault could have been heard anywhere within Nevada’s borders by those for whom they were meant. It was as if the restraints of high judicial office had been removed from the former wrestler and paratrooper, and he was finally free to return a blow or two.
Judge Gunderson refers to his Northern Nevada foes as the “silk-stocking” set. They may think his retirement means they’ll be able to bully their way back into a position of dominance within the legal community. But my guess is that the former chief justice is not through with that crowd just yet.
He may be heading off to sunny California to teach law to the young, but my money’s on Gunderson and his long memory. He still has plenty to teach the silk-stocking set who haven’t yet learned that Al Gunderson will not go gently into that good night of retirement.
He has just begun to fight those whom he believes subvert the aims of justice in Nevada. But he’ll be smart about it … he’ll wait until they see the whites of his eyes!
