Pauline Davis Hanson

Justice Pauline Davis Hanson was born in Selma, California, on July 13, 1922.  She was raised on her family’s ranch and attended Selma High School, graduating as salutatorian and the school’s first female student body president.  She attended Reedley College before completing her undergraduate studies, will a full scholarship, at the College, now University, of the Pacific.  Justice Hanson then attended Stanford Law School, receiving her LL.B. in 1946.  She married in 1947 and had three children by 1953.  She worked for a local Selma attorney before briefly suspending her law career to focus on raising her children.

In 1958, Justice Hanson took a job as California State Assemblyman Charles Garrigus’s executive secretary.  When the Fifth Appellate District was created in 1961, Justice Hanson was hired as the first law clerk for Presiding Justice Philip Conley.   She later worked for Justice Roy Gargano before being promoted, first to drafting all the court’s per curiam opinions, then to handling all its writs, and finally to managing the entire court as its first principal attorney.  At various points during this time, Justice Hanson also served as a director of the San Joaquin Valley Town Hall, a sustaining member of the Selma Guild to Valley Children’s Hospital, a member of the Fresno County Grand Jury, and a part of the Democratic State Central Committee. 

In 1977, Justice Hanson was appointed by Governor Edmond G. Brown Jr. as the first female judge on the Fresno County Superior Court.  After an unopposed election in 1978, she became Fresno County’s first full-time juvenile court judge.  In 1980, Justice Hanson was the first woman appointed to the California Court of Appeal, Fifth Appellate District and only the fourth woman justice to serve on California’s appellate courts.  In 1986, she was appointed as a member of the California Judicial Council.  Justice Hanson retired in 1987 for medical reasons and died in 1989.

Justice Hanson was a member of the American Association of University Women and Soroptimist International.  She was also a member of the Fresno County, California, and American Bar Associations, as well as the California Association of Women Attorneys.  She was a founding member of the National Association of Women Judges.  The Fresno County Women Lawyers maintains a scholarship and holds an annual dinner in Justice Hanson’s honor.