Rose Bird (1936–1999) was a former Chief Justice of the California Supreme Court. She was the first female Chief Justice of the Court, and the first to be removed from that office by a majority of the state's voters. California justices are selected by the governor but must be regularly reconfirmed by the electorate.

Bird was removed in the November 1986 election after a high-profile campaign which cited her categorical opposition to the death penalty. She had voted against the death penalty in every such case that came before her, despite the merits or facts of the case. This led Bird's opponents to claim that she was substituting her own opinions and ideas for the laws and precedents upon which judicial decisions are supposed to be made. The anti-Bird campaign ran devastating television commercials featuring the children of the victims of the murderers whose sentences Bird had voted to reverse. At the time, crime was a major political issue in California due to the soaring crime rates that accompanied the war on drugs of the early 1980s.

The campaign was considered to be a triumph on a statewide basis for "social conservatives." However, the campaign was also supported by business interests who felt that California had become too liberal (and anti-business) under prior chief justices like Roger Traynor , and Bird was compounding the liability crisis with poorly-reasoned opinions that were muddling previously-settled aspects of contract law.

Justices Cruz Reynoso and Joseph Grodin were also voted off at the same time, ostensibly for their anti-death penalty stance as well. Veteran Justice Stanley Mosk was able to keep his job because he had voted for the death penalty in some cases. As a result of the 1986 election, Govenor George Deukmejian was able to appoint several conservative justices and move the court towards the right.

Bird was originally appointed by former governor of California Jerry Brown, despite her lack of judicial experience (although she had clerked for a judge in Nevada once). He later admitted that he regretted his decision.

She died on December 4, 1999, of breast cancer, at the age of 63.