Lance Ito

Lance Allan Ito (born August 2, 1950) is an American retired judge, best known for presiding over the criminal trial for the O. J. Simpson murder case, held in the Los Angeles County Superior Court in 1995. Early life and career Ito was born in Los Angeles to Jim Ito and Toshi Ito. Both his parents were kept in internment camps for Japanese Americans with their families during the Second World War. Ito was enrolled in Sunday School at the Mount Hollywood Congregational Church. Ito attended John Marshall High School, where he was student body president and received the Scholar Athlete award in 1968. He earned his bachelor's degree with honors from the University of California, Los Angeles in 1972, and his J.D. degree from the then University of California, Berkeley, Boalt School of Law in 1975. He then joined the Los Angeles district attorney's office in 1977, working in the hardcore gang unit and the organized crime and terror unit, among others. In 1981, he married Margaret Ann York, the first woman to attain the rank of Deputy Chief in the Los Angeles Police Department and that department's highest ranking woman officer when she retired in 2002. The two met while at an Eagle Rock murder scene.