JAY RABINOWITZ; JUDGE LEGALIZED MARIJUANA USE IN PRIVATE HOMES

Jay Andrew Rabinowitz, 74, the Alaska Supreme Court justice best remembered
for legalizing marijuana use in private homes, died of cancer June 16 in
Seattle.

Rabinowitz, a Philadelphia native educated at Syracuse and Harvard
universities, moved to Alaska in 1958 and worked for two years as a
prosecutor. He was appointed to the Alaska Superior Court in 1960 and
elevated to the neophyte state's Supreme Court in 1965.

In 32 years on the high court, in which he often rotated as chief justice,
Rabinowitz wrote more than 1,200 decisions, greatly influencing the
development of Alaska's state laws.

He tackled the marijuana question in 1975, determining in an oft-cited
54-page decision that Alaska's constitutional privacy provision permitted
use of the drug in the privacy of the user's home. That decision was never
reversed or modified, but both the Alaska Legislature and a referendum have
since banned marijuana use.