Otto Kaus

Otto M. Kaus (January 7, 1920 – January 11, 1996) was a judge from the State of California. He was born in Vienna, Austria as the first child of the writers Otto Kaus and Gina Kaus. He was already attending school in Great Britain when the rest of his family fled the Nazis in the 1930s. Immigrating to the United States, his family settled in Los Angeles, California. He graduated from the University of California at Los Angeles in 1942 with a B.A., and then joined the U.S. Army, where he served until 1945. He then graduated from Loyola Law School in 1949, and was admitted to the state bar that year. He joined the law firm of Chase, Rotchford, Downen & Drukker.
In 1961, Kaus was appointed as a judge on the Los Angeles Superior Court by then Governor Pat Brown and in late 1964, Brown appointed Kaus to the California State Court of Appeal, where he served until 1981.
In 1981, Kaus was chosen to serve as Associate Justice on the California Supreme Court by Governor Governor Jerry Brown, whose father had appointed him to his previous post. Kaus was confirmed with little trouble. In 1982, Kaus was on the ballot for retention by the voters, along with fellow justices Cruz Reynoso and Allen Broussard. However, the state Supreme Court had become controversial due to the growing perception by many that Brown's appointees, particularly Chief Justice Rose Bird, were liberal ideologues whose rulings were political. Although Kaus was considered the least ideological and most independent of Brown's appointees, he was reconfirmed by 57% of the voters, far less than expected, after a campaign was waged against Brown's appointees that year.
After being retained, Kaus quietly continued to serve as justice and became well liked by both colleagues and subordinates. However, he was shaken by the campaign against him and feared for the independence of the state judiciary. He later remarked, "You cannot forget the fact that you have a crocodile in your bathtub. You keep wondering whether you're letting yourself be influenced, and you do not know. You do not know yourself that well". In addition, his mother in law was in failing health. So in October 1985, Kaus resigned from the court. He was replaced by Edward A. Panelli.
After leaving the judiciary, Kaus resumed private practice, joining the law firm of Hufstedler & Kaus in 1986 (the other "name" partner was former U.S. Secretary of Education Shirley Hufstedler), where he occasionally argued cases before the state Supreme Court where he had once served. He also mentored then-associate Jeffrey Ehrlich, who would later rise to national prominence for arguing cases in the United States and California Supreme Court.
Kaus retired from the practice of law in 1995, as he was diagnosed with lung cancer. He died of lung cancer in Beverly Hills, California. His wife and his son journalist and blogger "Mickey" were at his side.