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Veteran of the Month (Jude Litzenberger
VeteraN of the MoNth
San Diego - September 2021
By Amber Robinson
Jude Litzenberger
U.S. Navy Veteran Retired
If I had to choose one word to describe Navy veteran and this month’s Veteran of the Month, Jude Lirtzenberger, it would have to be “pioneer”. From helping to implement female integration onto all-male ships during her Navy service to creating a legal program for military and veterans, she doesn’t mind traversing unknown territory if it will help out a fellow service member.
Litzenberger joined the Navy at the end of the Vietnam War in 1975 as an enlisted sailor. After four years of service Jude planned to get out.. But a recruiter told her that general unrestricted line officers were being used to work with ships that were getting women for the first time. The Navy needed people to go and meet with these crews and explain to them what women could do and what new protocol would look like with women aboard. He assured her he could get her a slot in officer’s school.
Litzenberger had recently earned her Master’s in Organizational Psychology and knew she definitely qualified for the mission. She saw it as an opportunity even though she said the sailors at that time were adamantly against women on ships.
“They didn’t want women on their ships. It was a man’s Navy and they would face to face tell you that,” said Litzenberber.
The rest of Litzenberger’s career rotated between managing training schools and communications commands. She retired in 1995 after 21 years of service to the U.S. Navy. Although she already had a Master’s degree, Litzenberger got out and signed up promptly for law school to study criminal law. Originally leaning towards labor law, Litzenberger instead fell in love with the work that criminal defense lawyers did. Working with mostly public defenders throughout her law school career, she was able to learn just how important their work was.
As Litzenberger entered the workforce after school she found a particular need for veteran representation. She worked through a solo practice representing military personnel and veterans, standing in on various military administrative boards, taking on court martials or veteran criminal cases.
“If local soldiers, sailors or airmen got in trouble in town I would take on their cases,” said Litzenberger.
In 2007 Litzenberger provided legal counsel with members of the Public Defense to veterans attending Stand Down. After the event she and several of her cohorts discussed the need to provide a legal “safety net” for post 9/11 veterans returning home from the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan.
She and several other veteran movers and shakers then worked to form what they called the Returning Veterans Legal Task Force.
“We had about 60 different community members and other organizations that would meet once a month at Jimmy Carter’s Cafe to discuss how we could build that safety net,” said Litzenberger.
She and those involved had seen first hand the issues Vietnam Veterans faced when returning home.
“About 43 percent of people who went to Vietnam went to jail within 13 years of coming home,” said Litzenberger. “We wanted to avoid that. We just wanted to do it better.”
She and the group worked for almost four years to create a type of veterans court which they eventually called the Veterans Treatment Review Calendar.
Litzenberger became team leader of the program, responsible for evaluation of the program, keeping all data and keeping the team and incoming team members informed and trained.
Within the first three years of the program, she said she found “open ears” within the California legislation on how she and her program wanted to handle veteran cases. Therefore they were able to expand the program so she had legal basis to get veterans rights back after hitting legal snags.
What developed was a program veterans would complete to address the underlying problems that pushed them towards common criminal activities such as drinking incidents, fights or domestic violence.
‘The most prominent offense was obviously a DUI,” said Litzenberger. “They would drink to forget about their dead buddies or the memories of getting shot at.”
What Litzenberger knew was veterans who received an offense due to PTSD who did not receive treatment would, almost without fail, receive another offense within six months. She was able to take this data to the legislature and make a plea for a law to be passed that would erase DUI offenses from a veteran’s record if they went through the program.
“I told them that the safety of the public at large was of issue,” said Litzenberger. “You don’t want these guys out there drinking and driving, putting their or other people’s lives in jeopardy.” She convinced the legislature to amend an already existing law, Penal Code 1170.9. The law allowed a judge to refer a veteran to a treatment program. With Jude’s persuasion, the law now allowed the judge to erase the service member’s offenses from their record after the completion of the court appointed program. Veterans who entered the program were followed for an average of 20 months as they completed psychological and alcohol treatment for their respective offenses. If they completed the program then their offenses would be erased. This would help them in various ways, from retaining their place in service to getting a job after service. The program has been an overwhelming success.
“We have had a zero percent recidivism rate in that program for ten years,” said Litzenberger.
On top of the amazing work she has done through this program, Litzenberger provides services through a legal clinic for vets. She advises veterans who are unable to afford a lawyer or helps them find one at a reduced or pro bono rate. She has done similar work through her own nonprofit California Veterans Legal Task Force and is also a member of the Criminal Defense Lawyers Club, a collection of the best lawyers in San Diego.
Litzenberger has worked tirelessly to help veterans in the San Diego community since attaining her law degree post service. She allocates her passion, drive and vision to her faith.
