Dennis Cornell 7097

Retired Associate Justice Dennis A. Cornell of the California Court of Appeal Fifth Appellate District was born and raised in Merced, California. His parents were a civil engineer and a homemaker. He was expected to go to college and ended up attending Stanford University, where he majored in Political Science and developed an interest in the Civil War. He worked for the water system and did stadium announcing during college. He then attended George Washington University Law School in Washington DC, where he was exposed to the Vietnam War, Watergate, and the death penalty arguments in the Supreme Court. He also got to visit the U.S. Supreme Court several times and met Justice Thurgood Marshall.