Retired San Diego Superior Court Judge David Gill, who spent 50 years on the bench and was the county’s longest-serving judge ever, died Tuesday. He was 90.
He had been in failing health when he died at his downtown San Diego condo, said his wife, Marcia Gill.
Gill was widely viewed as a thoughtful and fair judge with a quick legal mind and dry wit. He was appointed to the municipal bench in 1974 by then-California Gov. Ronald Reagan and later moved to Superior Court. When Gill retired last year, he was not only San Diego’s longest-serving judge, he was at that time the longest-serving jurist among active judges throughout all of California.
San Diego Superior Court issued a statement this week mourning the loss of Gill, noting that he had “presided over thousands of criminal cases, including some of the most notable and complex in the Court’s history with unwavering fairness, professionalism and a deep sense of justice.”
The court pointed to “his character, his generosity, and his dedication to public service. He deeply cared about his role as a judge and wore his robe with humility and respect.”
Gill took on the tough cases, and his most recent work included decisions regarding where sexually violent predators could live in the community.
Superior Court Judge Michael Smyth, a past presiding judge, said Gill “always wanted to be the one to carry that burden” of taking on the most fraught cases. “It never waned for 50 years. It’s just incredible.”
Among them was the criminal trial of Dale Akiki, a former Spring Valley church day care volunteer wrongly accused in a case involving allegations of ritual child abuse. The 1993 trial lasted 217 days. It took the jury just seven hours to acquit Akiki.
Former San Diego U.S. Attorney Robert Brewer, friends with Gill for about 40 years, said Thursday that Gill had been “an incredibly dedicated judge,” one who was “very bright, fair and decisive.”
“It’s a huge loss to the San Diego legal community,” he said Thursday. “Losing him is personally difficult.”
Some longtime San Diegans may remember Gill. For many years, he was the primary judge who addressed — inspired, really — the daily pool of potential jurors who showed up for jury duty, his impassioned words stoking civic duty even among those thinking of squirming out of jury service.
Colleague Judge Joan Weber, herself on the bench for more than 35 years, said Gill “was a wonderful human being and wonderful committed judge,” a mentor for many others on the bench.
“He was just a one of a kind,” Weber said. “There will never be another David Gill on our court.”
Gill was born in Indiana. His father died when Gill was very young, and his mother soon moved them to her hometown of San Diego. Gill graduated from San Diego High School in 1952. Four years later, he earned his bachelor’s degree from Stanford University, carrying three majors — history, economics and political science. A law degree from Stanford followed in 1959.
He enlisted in the Army Reserves while still an undergrad and served on active duty in the Army Judge Advocate General’s office in the Pentagon from 1960 to 1963, the same year he was admitted to practice before the U.S. Supreme Court. Like everything he did, he stuck with his commitment, retiring from the Reserves in 1990 as a full colonel.
He returned to San Diego in 1963, where he became a deputy city attorney, then deputy district attorney for a few years. He then spent about a decade in private practice — the firm was Harrington, Waddell, Gill and Briggs — as a criminal defense attorney before his judicial appointment, first to the municipal court bench before moving over to Superior Court a few years later.
Gill was selected as the Jurist of the Year in 2012 by the San Diego County Bar Association. Two years ago, he was honored with the first Pillar of the Legal Community award during the Red Boudreau Dinner, an annual event in the local litigation community. The award, designed to recognize local judges, is new. Brewer says it is now named for Gill.
Smyth said last year he considers Gill a lion of the San Diego Superior Court. “He felt he was richly blessed,” Smyth said Wednesday, “but it was all of us who were richly blessed by him being here.”
Outside of work, Gill kept his schedule full. He’d been a part-time law school professor, joined several legal organizations and sat on multiple boards of directors, including Goodwill Industries and Salvation Army. And for nearly 50 years, he volunteered with the Boy Scouts (now called Scouting America), where he has run the panel that granted Eagle Scout status.
“He was selfless,” said Sean Roy, scout executive and CEO of San Diego-Imperial Council for Scouting America. “He was always about others succeeding and others benefiting. That is part of his DNA. Everything about him was authentic and about somebody else.”
And then there was Gill’s love of music. He played three types of saxophone and took part in several local groups, including a big band consisting entirely of lawyers.
Gill, who was an only child, had no children. His first wife, Joann Bloomquist, died in 1987. He later met Marcia, and they were married for 31 years. “David was the love of my life,” she said Wednesday. Their first date was a Padres baseball game. He showed up in a suit and tie.
In a message announcing her husband’s death, Marcia said he had “died peacefully with rosary beads in his hand that Monsignor Campbell had laid on his hand only an hour before. He died knowing he was loved.”
A rosary for Gill is scheduled for 9 a.m. Oct. 8 at Our Lady of the Rosary Catholic church in Little Italy. Funeral services will follow at 9:30 a.m.
In lieu of flowers, his family requests donations be made to San Diego-Imperial Council for Scouting America or Father Joe’s Villages.
Staff writer Kristina Davis contributed to this report.