Lawrence K. Karlton (born 1935) is a United States federal judge.
Born in Brooklyn, New York in 1935, Karlton received a J.D. from Columbia Law School in 1958, at the age of 23. He was in the United States Army from 1958 to 1960, and was a Civilian legal officer at the Sacramento Army Depot from 1960 to 1962. He was in private practice in Sacramento, California from 1962 to 1976, and also litigated civil liberties cases as a volunteer lawyer for the American Civil Liberties Union. He was appointed by California Governor Jerry Brown as a judge of the Superior Court of California, where he served from 1976 to 1979.
On June 5, 1979, President Jimmy Carter nominated Karlton to a seat vacated by Thomas J. MacBride on the United States District Court for the Eastern District of California. He was confirmed by the United States Senate on July 23, 1979, and received his commission on July 24, 1979. He served as Chief Judge from 1983–1990, and as Chief Judge Emeritus until assuming senior status on May 28, 2000. Karlton is known as an outspoken liberal, and many of his clerks go on to work in public interest law.
Karlton, along with Judges Stephen Reinhardt and Thelton Henderson, is a member of a special three-judge panel overseeing overcrowding in the California prison system.