Judge James Gray is no hippie pot smoker. Before becoming the presiding judge of Orange County Superior Court, Gray practiced law with the Judge Advocate General's Corps, U.S. Navy in Guam and California. His book Why Our Drug Laws Have Failed and What We Can Do About It: A Judicial Indictment of the War On Drugs (Temple University Press) was published in 2001, and the former Republican ran as the Libertarian Party candidate against U.S. Senator Barbara Boxer and GOP nominee Bill Jones in 2004, the same year he was the keynote speaker at the Libertarian National Convention. These days, the retired jurist, who raised four children with his wife in Newport Beach, is the face of the campaign to legalize marijuana in California. Gray leads a group of former judges, prosecutors and cops that agrees Californians would be safer if Proposition 19 passes in November. His nonprofit Law Enforcement Against Prohibition argues violent criminals are getting light sentences and early releases due to the costs and infrastructure demands required to convict and house non-violent criminals. Gray should know: He put many of them there in the first place.
