Did you know that Judge Lance Ito retired in 2015? Ito had lots of big plans for
his post-retirement life, but one goal involved learning how to play the guitar.
Curious to know what else Judge Ito has been up to? Keep watching.
After gaining popularity in the O.J. Simpson trial, Judge Ito found himself
the victim of frequent thievery at his place of work. His courtroom is said to
be the hardest to find in the Los Angeles courthouse for a strangely specific reason.
Every courtroom there, including Judge Ito's, is labeled with a hallway nameplate
of its presiding judge — at least until thieves started repeatedly stealing his.
Judge Ito has time and time again replaced the nameplate on his courtroom. He had it replaced
and even glued it in place to prevent people from getting it, but that did not deter the
thieves from stealing it. No investigations were done in order to find the culprits,
and it is assumed that the thieves snatch the nameplates to serve as souvenirs.
Court officials said that it happened so often that people
started making jokes about how fast the replacement nameplate would be stolen.
Eventually, Judge Ito just gave up replacing his nameplate and his courtroom went unlabeled.
If people wanted to find it, they had to ask for assistance from personnel in order to locate the
courtroom. The nameplate-swiping incident just goes to show how popular the judge still was.
"Ito! Ito! Ito!"
Being a part of the trial of the century provided many career opportunities for the
public figures involved with the case who opted to take advantage of them. Judge Ito,
however, returned to his regular life as a judge before the media circus had changed his life.
"I just believe that Judge Ito is, you know, he doesn't really need to go Hollywood
because he's a judge."
In 2012, Judge Ito gave a rare interview to Fox News wherein he talked about his life
after the O.J. Simpson trial, and for him, not much has changed. He became more popular than
ever before, but his professional life went back to normal. In that interview, Judge Ito said,
"I'm still ensconced on the ninth floor of the Downtown LA Criminal Courts Building,
trying one long cause/complex criminal matter
after another. It's probably [been] 150-plus jury trials since O.J."
The judge also shared a bit about his personal life and said that everything is pretty much
the same; he was still happily married to his wife, still drove the same car, and still lived
in the same house. However, he also expressed how much he was looking forward to retirement.
Many of the people involved in the O.J. Simpson case became part of our pop-culture lexicon
during and after the trial. Comedy shows such as Saturday Night Live have come up
with sketches of the trial and the different personalities involved, but one of the most
popular bits came from The Tonight Show with Jay Leno. Leno's bit featured The Dancing
Itos — a group of men wearing judge's robes and donning Ito's signature beard and glasses.
The Dancing Itos made several appearances in the late-night show, dancing their way onto the stage
in choreographed moves. Because the Simpson trial was so popular, Jay Leno took advantage of it and
his show's ratings went sky-high with the Dancing Itos' appearance. Leno told the Los Angeles Times:
"To me, what we’re making fun of is high-priced lawyers,
media hype, a justice system that doesn’t seem to please anybody no matter what they do."
Although The Dancing Itos became popular during the course of the trial,
the judge who inspired the bit had nothing to say about it.
Judge Lance Ito retired in 2015 after presiding on more than 500 cases after
the O.J. Simpson trial. He mainly worked on cases involving robberies, rapes, and murders,
but none of them placed the judge under public scrutiny as much as the Simpson case.
According to his friend, attorney Robert Philibosian, Ito was given
those cases because of his expertise on the matter. Philibosian told NBC News:
"There's separate security to get in [Ito's courtroom]. He
was assigned there because of his high level of expertise."
Although Ito has declined countless interviews in order to keep his personal life private,
Philibosian said that Ito had been traveling with his wife after retiring and just spending
time with his big group of friends. Although Ito has a controversial reputation because of
his decisions during the O.J. Simpson trial, his friends describe him as a decent guy.
One friend, former LAPD detective Sergio Robleto, said to NBC News,
"[Ito] gets a bum rap on this O.J. thing."
Philibosian also revealed that Ito is a jokester when not at work, telling NBC News:
"He could joke at himself and others,
which makes him a human being. He had a sense of humor, but then it was like: Back to work."
In 2021, Lance Ito's wife, Peggy York, passed away at the age of 80. York was a police officer and
rose up the ranks to deputy chief at the LAPD. She met Ito at a crime scene in Eagle Rock,
California, and they soon started a relationship. According to NBC News,
Ito had this recollection about meeting his future wife for the very first time:
"We met at 4 a.m. at a homicide scene, both looking over a dead body."
The couple married in 1981. They had no children together but they were
often surrounded by friends who visited their home for cookouts.
Before his retirement, Judge Ito also revealed that one of his plans was to learn how to play
the guitar, according to NBC News. Because Judge Lance Ito is known to be a private individual,
there are no interviews regarding his career and activities even after his
retirement. The latest news about him came in 2019 when he was a speaker at
the Pasadena Rotary Club's meeting on the "Japanese-American Draft Resistance from
Inside the Heart Mountain Relocation Center." Today, people can only assume that the former
judge has finally learned to play the guitar while enjoying a quiet life in retirement.
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