In a previous This Just In, we ran a quote from Jim McElroy, the attorney who’s been fighting the city council in the 17-year-old legal battle over the Mount Soledad Cross.
McElroy said he didn’t know if Supreme Court Justice Anthony M. Kennedy has ever been to San Diego, and said he “doesn’t know the Mount Soledad Cross from the man on the moon.”
The point McElroy was making was that there’s no inherent reason why Kennedy should have an intricate knowledge of the Soledad Cross case, because he’s not a local judge. That backs up McElroy’s theory that Kennedy’s announcement on the cross today was merely a stalling tactic to give him some more time to get accustomed to the case before making a final decision.
Well, thanks to Kelly Davis, over at CityBeat, who sent me an e-mail, we now know that Kennedy has visited San Diego at least once. Davis pointed out that Kennedy dedicated the library at California Western School of Law (which, incidentally, I can see from my desk).
That story was corroborated by a librarian at Cal Western, who kindly walked out into the foyer of the library and confirmed that a plaque there states that Justice Kennedy dedicated the building on Sept. 11, 2000.
Whether Kennedy made a trip up to Mount Soledad while he was here, is anyone’s guess.