Justice Elena J. Duarte to Retire from Third Appellate District

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Third Appellate District Associate Justice Elena J. Duarte to Retire

Third Appellate District Associate Justice Elena J. Duarte will retire at the end of May after 15 years on the court and over 19 years of judicial service. By Natalie Stone Apr 27, 2026 California Court of Appeal Associate Justice Elena J. Duarte will retire from the Third District at the end of May after 15 years on the court and over 19 years of judicial service. “The decision to serve the public and be visible in the community for my entire career thus far has been the best decision I ever made,” said Duarte. “I look forward to the possibility of additional opportunities to serve the public in the future.”

A native Californian from San Jose, Duarte turns 60 later this year and was appointed to the Court of Appeal in December 2010 by Governor Schwarzenegger. She has been the only Latina on the single division Third District bench the entire time she has served. She is also its longest-serving Latinx justice. Upon her appointment in 2010, three women served simultaneously on the 11-member court for the first time in that court’s history. Duarte sat on the first all-female panel to hear oral argument at the Third District in April 2012, and a photograph of that historic event is displayed in the court’s Memorial Vestibule just before entering the courtroom.

A three-time judicial appointee, Duarte was elevated to her position on the Court of Appeal after serving as a judge on the Sacramento Superior Court from 2008 to 2010. Before moving to Sacramento, she served as a judge on the Los Angeles Superior Court. At the time of her first judicial appointment, she was Chief of the Cyber and Intellectual Property Crimes Section at the United States Attorney’s Office in Los Angeles. Her career as a federal litigator began upon her graduation from Stanford Law School in 1992, when she was accepted into the national Attorney General’s Honor Program and moved to Washington, D.C. as one of 12 honor graduates in the Criminal Division. She subsequently returned to California to prosecute federal cases in both Sacramento and Los Angeles.

Duarte will be honored in May as Sacramento County Bar Association’s Judge of the Year and with a lifetime achievement award by the Cruz Reynoso Bar Association, named for the first Latinx judge on the Third District who was then elevated to the California Supreme Court as its first Latinx associate justice.

Administrative Presiding Justice Laurie Earl wrote: “In addition to her tremendous contribution to the community, Justice Duarte is a wonderful colleague. She fully prepares for each case that is assigned to her, even those in which she is not the author. She treats litigants fairly and affords those who appear for oral argument the opportunity to be heard and the respect of preparation. She asks questions that go to the heart of the issues before us. She is a solid judge on our court, and her retirement will leave an enormous gap on our bench.”

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