Jorge Díaz Cruz

Jorge Díaz Cruz (September 15, 1914–1998) served as Associate Justice of the Puerto Rico Supreme Court. Born in Ponce, in a family of well-known public figures. His great-grandfather was Román Baldorioty de Castro, the founder of Puerto Rico's autonomist movement, his grandfather was journalist and author Arístides Díaz y Díaz, and his father served as Superintendent of Public Education.

A 1930 graduate of Central High School in Santurce, Puerto Rico, he obtained his bachelors degree as well as his law degree at the University of Puerto Rico. During 35 years he practiced law in Yauco, Puerto Rico, refusing the entreatises of Puerto Rico Senate Majority Leader Luis Negrón López and Governor Luis Muñoz Marín to accept appointments to public office. Finally, in 1973 he allowed his friend, Governor Rafael Hernández Colón to place his name in nomination for Associate Justice, a nomination strongly supported by the Governor's father, former Associate Justice Rafael Hernández Matos and by Negrón López. He served on the Court for 11 years, until he retired on May 16, 1984.

Díaz Cruz died in 1998, at the age of 83.

Sources

*La Justicia en sus Manos by Luis Rafael Rivera, ISBN 1-57581-884-1