L-R: Supreme Court of California Justices, Leondra Kruger, Ming Chin, Goodwin Liu, Tani Cantil-Sakauye, Mariano-Florentino Cuéllar, Carol Corrigan and Joshua Groban.

California's high court has vowed to not rest until equality for all is a "living truth."

The California Supreme Court issued a statement signed Wednesday by all seven justices condemning racism. The proclamation from the court follows a separate statement from Chief Justice Tani Cantil-Sakauye on Monday.

The justices said that the United States is at an "inflection point" in history and called upon society to own up to these unacceptable failings and build on shared strength.

"We state clearly and without equivocation that we condemn racism in all its forms: conscious, unconscious, institutional, structural, historic, and continuing," they wrote. "We say this as persons who believe all members of humanity deserve equal respect and dignity; as citizens committed to building a more perfect Union; and as leaders of an institution whose fundamental mission is to ensure equal justice under the law for every single person."

The justices said that it's not just overt bigotry, but also "inattention and complacency" that have allowed racism to fester in America.

"These are burdens particularly borne by African Americans as well as Indigenous Peoples singled out for disparate treatment in the United States Constitution when it was ratified," the court said. "We have an opportunity, in this moment, to overcome division, accept responsibility for our troubled past, and forge a unified future for all who share devotion to this country and its ideals."

The jurists said that it is imperative to confront, in their personal and professional lives, the injustices that have led millions to call for criminal justice reform. "As members of the legal profession sworn to uphold our fundamental constitutional values, we will not and must not rest until the promise of equal justice under law is, for all our people, a living truth," the high court wrote.

The statement emerged from the court's weekly case conference Wednesday with no explanation. The chief justice, as the constitutional leader of the state's judiciary and chair of the Judicial Council, typically issues any statements on current events affecting the courts, as she did Monday.

Judicial canons bar California judges from making statements that "commit the judge with respect to cases, controversies, or issues that are likely to come before the courts."

The court's statement comes after all nine justices on Washington's Supreme Court wrote a letter imploring lawyers to confront racial prejudice.

"Recent events have brought to the forefront of our collective consciousness a painful fact that is, for too many of our citizens, common knowledge: the injustices faced by black Americans are not relics of the past," the justices said in their letter. "We continue to see racialized policing and the overrepresentation of black Americans in every stage of our criminal and juvenile justice systems. Our institutions remain affected by the vestiges of slavery: Jim Crow laws that were never dismantled and racist court decisions that were never disavowed."

Justices in Georgia and Alaska also issued statements in recent days acknowledging the public pain and anger generated by George Floyd's death. Only four of the five Alaska Supreme Court justices signed the letter, with Justice Craig Stowers abstaining.