Manuel Lawrence Real (January 27, 1924 – June 26, 2019) was a

United States district judge The United States district courts are the trial courts of the U.S. federal judiciary. There is one district court for each federal judicial district, which each cover one U.S. state or, in some cases, a portion of a state. Each district cou ...

of the

United States District Court for the Central District of California The United States District Court for the Central District of California (in case citations, C.D. Cal.; commonly referred to as the CDCA or CACD) is a Federal trial court that serves over 19 million people in Southern and Central California, ...

. He was appointed in 1966 by President

Lyndon B. Johnson Lyndon Baines Johnson (; August 27, 1908January 22, 1973), often referred to by his initials LBJ, was an American politician who served as the 36th president of the United States from 1963 to 1969. He had previously served as the 37th vice ...

Early life, education, and career

Born in San Pedro,

California California is a state in the Western United States, located along the Pacific Coast. With nearly 39.2million residents across a total area of approximately , it is the most populous U.S. state and the 3rd largest by area. It is also the m ...

Spanish Spanish might refer to: * Items from or related to Spain: **Spaniards are a nation and ethnic group indigenous to Spain **Spanish language, spoken in Spain and many Latin American countries **Spanish cuisine Other places * Spanish, Ontario, Can ...

immigrant parents, Real received a

Bachelor of Science A Bachelor of Science (BS, BSc, SB, or ScB; from the Latin ') is a bachelor's degree awarded for programs that generally last three to five years. The first university to admit a student to the degree of Bachelor of Science was the University o ...

degree from the

University of Southern California , mottoeng = "Let whoever earns the palm bear it" , religious_affiliation = Nonsectarian—historically Methodist , established = , accreditation = WSCUC , type = Private research university , academic_affiliations = , endowment = $8.1 ...

in 1944 and a

Bachelor of Laws Bachelor of Laws ( la, Legum Baccalaureus; LL.B.) is an undergraduate law degree in the United Kingdom and most common law jurisdictions. Bachelor of Laws is also the name of the law degree awarded by universities in the People's Republic of Ch ...

from

Loyola Law School Loyola Law School is the law school of Loyola Marymount University, a private Catholic university in Los Angeles, California. Loyola was established in 1920. Academics Degrees offered include the Juris Doctor (JD); Master of Science in Legal ...

in 1951. He was in the

United States Navy Reserve The United States Navy Reserve (USNR), known as the United States Naval Reserve from 1915 to 2005, is the Reserve Component (RC) of the United States Navy. Members of the Navy Reserve, called Reservists, are categorized as being in either the Se ...

during

World War II World War II or the Second World War, often abbreviated as WWII or WW2, was a world war that lasted from 1939 to 1945. It involved the vast majority of the world's countries—including all of the great powers—forming two opposing ...

, from 1943 to 1945. He was an Assistant United States Attorney for the Southern District of California from 1952 to 1955. He was in private practice in San Pedro from 1955 to 1964. He was the United States Attorney for the Southern District of California from 1964 to 1966.

Federal judicial service

On September 26, 1966, Real was nominated by President

to a new seat on the

created by 80 Stat. 75. He was confirmed by the

United States Senate The United States Senate is the upper chamber of the United States Congress, with the House of Representatives being the lower chamber. Together they compose the national bicameral legislature of the United States. The composition and pow ...

on October 20, 1966, and received his commission on November 3, 1966. He served as Chief Judge of the district from 1982 to 1993. In 2006, House Judiciary Committee Chairman Jim Sensenbrenner, R-Wis., introduced a resolution permitting the Judiciary Committee to investigate Real to see whether impeachment hearings were warranted. The impeachment effort was later dropped. In 2008, Real received a public reprimand for his handling of a bankruptcy matter. Real assumed

senior status Senior status is a form of semi- retirement for United States federal judges. To qualify, a judge in the federal court system must be at least 65 years old, and the sum of the judge's age and years of service as a federal judge must be at leas ...

on November 4, 2018. He was the last federal court judge in active service to have been appointed by President Johnson. He died on June 26, 2019, aged 95.

Decisions

Pasadena Unified School District

He was known for his January 22, 1970 decision ordering Pasadena Unified School District to adopt a plan to correct racial imbalance at all levels. "It is ordered, adjudged and decreed that the defendants, Pasadena City Board of Education, Mrs. LuVerne LaMotte, Albert C. Lowe, Bradford C. Houser, John T. Welsh, and Joseph J. Engholm, as members of the Pasadena City Board of Education, and Ralph W. Hornbeck, as Superintendent of Schools ... are enjoined from discriminating of the basis of race ... in the operation of the district." His decision: "Commencing in September of 1970, there shall be no school in the District elementary or junior high or senior high school, with a majority of any minority students." The board of education and the superintendent adopted a forced busing plan to meet the new legal mandate. Real did not order forced busing; that was creation of the Pasadena Unified School District.

Other cases

Real was noted for his judicial behavior in the 2000s. From 2001 to 2009, he had custody of disputed Filipino assets, for which he had to account in 2009. A federal appeals court panel ruled that his accounting "plainly fails to account for all transactions involving the assets during the eight years they were held in the clerk of court's custody. It doesn't give the reader even a basic understanding of the path by which $33.8 million worth of assets deposited in September 2000 came to be worth $34.7 million today". On January 11, 2012, the Ninth Circuit removed Real from the controversial case of Alexander Sanchez, a former

MS-13 Mara Salvatrucha, commonly known as MS-13, is an international criminal gang that originated in Los Angeles, California, in the 1970s and 1980s. Originally, the gang was set up to protect Salvadoran immigrants from other gangs in the Los Ange ...

gang leader turned gang interventionist. In November 2012 it was reported that Real had shown a pattern of making rulings in favor of companies in which he owned stock. Real overturned the conviction of four men who conspired to rob a fictional cocaine stash house in a governmental reverse sting operation, citing outrageous government conduct. However, the 9th circuit reversed Real on May 17, 2016, and remanded the case to a different judge. On April 12, 2018, Real ruled that the Justice Department cannot require police forces to comply with its immigration enforcement criteria in order to receive funding.

References

External links

* * {{DEFAULTSORT:Real, Manuel Lawrence 1924 births 2019 deaths People from San Pedro, Los Angeles American people of Spanish descent Assistant United States Attorneys Hispanic and Latino American judges Judges of the United States District Court for the Central District of California Lawyers from Los Angeles Loyola Law School alumni Loyola Marymount University alumni Military personnel from California United States Attorneys for the Southern District of California United States district court judges appointed by Lyndon B. Johnson University of Southern California alumni 20th-century American judges 21st-century judges