Please attribute the following to Hector Villagra, executive director of the ACLU Foundation of Southern California, in regards to the death of Ninth Circuit Court Judge Stephen Reinhardt. Villagra clerked for Judge Reinhardt in the 9th Circuit from 1995 to 1996:
"The news is devastating. He was brilliant — a great legal mind and writer — but he was equally hard working. He worked seven days a week, completely committed to doing justice. I remember once being in his chambers at 11:00 o’clock on a Saturday night when he was writing a dissent because the full 9th Circuit had decided not to rehear a death penalty appeal. He knew it was totally pointless; it wasn't going to affect the outcome. But it was the right thing to do, and that's what mattered. He wanted his voice and his objections heard."