Born in Olympia, Washington, Kremer attended Everett High School in Everett, Washington, but his attendance at the school was interrupted when he contracted polio in one of the last epidemics of the disease in the 1950s. Kremer won the state title of best high school debater as a senior and graduated from Everett in 1956.[1]
As Presiding Justice, Kremer wrote court opinions ruling in favor of a grower by upholding a $1.7 million judgment against the United Farm Workers for holding an illegal strike,[4] in favor of a teenager by overturning a $166.50 speeding ticketfine imposed by a traffic court,[5] that a widowed father should be given custody of his daughter after his parents-in-law and their attorney used "inexcusable" tactics to try to take custody from him,[6] that an insurance company could not sue to recover losses that occurred in space exploration,[7] that a fundamentalist Christian mother convicted of civil contempt could be charged with felony child-stealing for taking her teenage son from his gay father without violating her constitutional protection against double jeopardy,[8] that a city did not act with gross negligence in a surfer's death by failing to call for off-duty lifeguards,[9] that police did have probable cause to arrest the co-worker of a bludgeoned teenage murder victim,[10] that the owner of an apartment complex could refuse to allow the installation of Cox Cable equipment,[11] and that doctors reporting suspected cases of child abuse were immune from lawsuits by parents.[12]
Presiding Justice Kremer has been active in legal education through programs for the California Judges Association, San Diego law schools and a variety of lawyer and civic groups.
After serving as Presiding Justice for 18 years, Kremer retired on July 31, 2003.[1]
^Initially named after French PresidentMarie François Sadi Carnot, who was assassinated in 1894, the Carnot debates centered on issues of French policy. In 1919, the event was renamed the Joffre Debate after Marshal Joseph Joffre, France's military commander during World War I.[2] The Joffre Debate is the oldest intercollegiate debate contest in the United States.[1]