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  "description": "Ramirez has been offering tours of the courthouse he designed and presides in for decades. I went on such a tour Monday on Dec. 1, and the justice and I took up more of each other’s time, three hours, than we should have.",
  "path": "/chief-justice-offering-tours-of-riverside-appellate-courthouse/",
  "publishedAt": "2025-12-07T14:55:41.000Z",
  "site": "https://ielaw.news",
  "tags": [
    "_Jonathan Art Foundation_",
    "_read it online_"
  ],
  "textContent": "If you are interested in architecture, construction, civics, local history, government planning or the law, I recommend you reach out to Presiding Justice Manuel Ramirez.\n\nRamirez has been offering tours of the courthouse he designed and presides in for decades. I went on such a tour Monday on Dec. 1, and the justice and I took up more of each other’s time, three hours, than we should have.\n\nFirst, to lay the groundwork for my lay readers: the Fourth District Court of Appeal, Division Two, hears appeals on cases from the superior courts of San Bernardino, Riverside and Inyo counties. Prior to 1999, the court rented a former bank building in downtown San Bernardino. The courtroom, being a bank, was filled with large pillars which obstructed the view of the justices. As Ramirez showed me, spectators would lean to the left, lean to the right, and split in the middle depending on which justice was speaking.\n\nRamirez, who has been Chief Justice since 1990, was given a $7.5 million budget ($15 million in today’s money). The first accomplishment: they finished under budget ($6.8 million spent). Their second accomplishment: they finished ahead of schedule. A third accomplishment: the place is beautiful. Those old jokes that you can get jobs done either cheap, fast or good quality; or that the government can’t ever give you any of those qualities, are disproven. Ramirez does a good job explaining how they cut the cost down: don’t fight with the architects, cut out unnecessary expenditures. Above all, he continued giving gratitude to the laborers, carpenters and construction workers who gave discounts on their work because of their pride in working on such a project.\n\nI am ashamed to say that my tour was the first time I visited the courthouse. To cut down on travel time, I always watched oral arguments through the YouTube webcast. Opinions are posted online, and I rarely need to read opening briefs or other internal documents. I, also, had in my mind that the courthouse was as far away as the federal appellate courthouse, which resides in Pomona. So, I was wrong twice over. As San Bernardino Superior Judge Wilfred Schneider said at a recent industry dinner, showing up, in person, shows that you care.\n\nI’ve rambled enough to set the scene. Time to talk about what the courthouse actually is.\n\n### An art exhibit\n\nI did not think that the courthouse was also going to be an open art exhibit. The building has posted historic photos of courthouses, paintings from Manzanar internment camp survivors and paintings on loan from the _Jonathan Art Foundation_. The Jonathan Art Foundation’s paintings were provided with the requirement that the courthouse be open to the public. So, your visit is not only desired, but also required for the continuation of the court’s interior decorations.\n\nThe Manzanar paintings were provided on loan after the court held a recreation of argument for the Japanese internment case, Korematsu v United States.\n\nOne such painting, which Ramirez pointed out to me, was drawn by a man who was a child while he was held at the Manzanar internment camp. The colors were brighter than one would expect, and it appeared to be more of a playground than a camp, but, as Ramirez said, that was how the man remembered it: internment through a child’s eyes.\n\nThe court also commissioned artwork: in the foyer is a drawing representing the plaintiff in the school desegregation case Mendez v. Westminster, which the court also recreated.\n\n**A civics education**\n\nThroughout the courthouse are weighty reminders of our nation’s history. Plaques in front of the court’s upper rooms remind us of the words of key people in American history, such as a line from President Thomas Jefferson’s inaugural address: Every difference of opinion is not a difference of principle.\n\nYou don’t have to take Ramirez’s tour, however, to learn the lessons this courthouse gives. Posted in the lobby, on days without oral argument, are accounts written by Stanley Mosk, former associate justice of the California Supreme Court and former attorney general for our state.\n\nMosk wrote an account of American history called Democracy in America—Day by Day. It includes a history lesson for every day of the year. You can _read it online_, or by going into the courthouse on days without oral argument. Ramirez scanned his copy and puts the xeroxed scans in the court’s calendar docket.\n\nOn the day of my tour, the excerpt from Nov. 26 was still up:\n\n_When quoting from the federalist papers, everyone has his favorite, like biblical psalms and Skaespeare sonnets. Mine is Madison number XLIV in which he discusses “Supposed Dangers of State Governments from the Powers of the Union. In it are these significant paragraphs:_\n\n_The p[owers delegated by the proposed Constitution to the federal government are few and defined. Those which are to remain in the state governments are numerous and indefinite. The former will be exercised principally on external objects, as war, peace, negotiations, and foreign commerce with which last the power of taxation will, for the most part, be connected. The powers reserved to the several States will extend to all the objects which, in the ordinary course of affairs, concern the lives, liberties, and properties of the people and the internal order, improvement and prosperity of the State._\n\n_The operations of the federal government will bear the most extensive and important in times of war and danger; those of the State governments, in times of peace and security. As the former period will probably bear a small proportion to the latter, the State governments will here enjoy another advantage over the federal government._\n\n**A courthouse**\n\nWell, I had to get to the functionality of the courthouse eventually. The building was unique in that it was designed to be a courthouse. What does an appellate courthouse need? According to Ramirez, at least before online case lookup existed: conference rooms, law libraries and offices. The court set up conference rooms to encourage resolution of cases before oral arguments are needed, and breakout rooms, with remote appearance capability, so that lawyers can talk with their clients no matter their location.\n\nAs far as the courtroom itself: Ramirez designed it to calm attorneys’ nerves. They won’t give their best argument when stressed, he figured.\n\nSo, to the left of the courtroom, through French doors, is a courtyard with a gurgling fountain. The courtroom floor is green, a color which instinctively calms a person. The lights are diffused. The walls are sound-absorbing. The freeway’s roar cannot be heard.\n\nTwo projectors, set up on opposite corners of the room, project lawyers arguing remotely onto the white walls. This way, both the audience and the justices can naturally see the litigant without twisting around.\n\nAnd, yes, there are no columns blocking anyone’s view. Constructing the courtroom without columns was an engineering feat by itself, Ramirez said.\n\n### An architectural interest\n\nBeyond the function, the story of its creation, and the lessons, the courthouse is architecturally interesting.\n\nThe lobby floor contains extinct fossils. The metal pergola in the front evokes the downtown Riverside train station. The wood elements are made of Honduran mahogany. The office doors include wired glass, invoking downtown Los Angeles’ civic offices. Ramirez can lead you through the distinctions between the square and round columns as far as classical interpretation goes, the exterior window design, and the cutting of the floor tiles.\n\nRamirez said that anyone interested in taking a tour should reach out to him at his work email: _Manuel.Ramirez@jud.ca.gov_. He does tours for school groups as well.",
  "title": "Chief Justice offering tours of Riverside appellate courthouse",
  "updatedAt": "2025-12-07T14:55:41.441Z"
}