Lots of action at the Supreme Court’s double conference yesterday. The court ruled on 195 matters, including:
LGBTQ discrimination
See: Supreme Court won’t hear same-sex wedding cake case. The bakery is planning to ask the U.S. Supreme Court to hear the case, according to Bob Egelko’s article in the San Francisco Chronicle.
Death penalty appellate jurisdiction
Doing something it rarely does, the court transferred to itself an appeal pending in the Court of Appeal. (See here and rule 10.1000(a)(1)(A).) People v. Mataele was transferred at the request of the Fourth District, Division Three. The appeal apparently concerns a condemned prisoner’s unsuccessful resentencing petition that might not have any potential to affect his death sentence.
The Supreme Court’s transfer order states, “In addition to any issues raised on appeal concerning the resentencing proceeding below, the parties are directed to brief and argue whether this court has exclusive jurisdiction over this appeal, or whether this appeal may be decided by the Court of Appeal. (See Cal. Const., art. VI, § 11, subd. (a); People v. Coleman (1991) 53 Cal.3d 949, 951, fn. 1.)”
Three years ago, the Supreme Court affirmed the defendant’s death sentence, but remanded for the superior court to consider whether to strike some enhancements. (People v. Mataele (2022) 13 Cal.5th 372 (see here).)
The Court of Appeal docket says this about the appeal: “Length of sentence: Motions are Denied.” Article VI, section 11(a), cited in the transfer order, gives the Supreme Court “appellate jurisdiction when judgment of death has been pronounced.” The Coleman footnote, also cited, said, “Because the appeal is from a resentencing following our decision [affirming the defendant’s death sentence, but remanding for resentencing on counts other than murder], we ordered the matter transferred to this court for disposition.”
[Update: After reviewing the Court of Appeal transfer request and its attachments, I see that the appeal concerns unsuccessful challenges to a sentence enhancement and a restitution order.]
[May 30 update: the summary by court staff (see here) says, “This case presents issues relating to the noncapital resentencing of a capital defendant following remand.”]
Appealability
The court granted review in Maniago v. Desert Cardiology Consultants’ Medical Group, Inc., and it limited the issue to: “Is a voluntary dismissal with prejudice an appealable order if it was entered after an adverse ruling by the trial court in order to expedite an appeal of the ruling?”
In a published opinion, the Fourth District, Division One, dismissed an appeal the plaintiffs filed after they voluntarily dismissed their action, which in turn followed superior court orders sustaining demurrers, with leave to amend, to most, but not all, of their claims and striking punitive damages allegations. Disagreeing with (unnecessarily?) and also distinguishing one of its own decisions (Ashland Chemical Co. v. Provence (1982) 129 Cal.App.3d 790), Division One said that, although “a voluntary dismissal following an adverse ruling can result in an appealable judgment in some circumstances,” “[d]ismissing the entire action with prejudice did not transform the nonappealable interim orders into an appealable judgment.”
Claims procedure preemption
The court also agreed to hear Tesoro Refining & Marketing Company v. City of Carson. The Second District, Division Four, unpublished opinion held an oil refinery company’s lawsuit for a partial refund of a city’s business tax was properly dismissed because the company hadn’t complied with procedures mandated by the city’s municipal code even though it had complied with the California Government Claims Act requirements.
Concluding that the Claims Act didn’t preempt the municipal code, Division Four declined to follow what it referred to as “a footnote buried in dicta” in the Supreme Court’s decision in Volkswagen Pacific, Inc. v. City of Los Angeles (1972) 7 Cal.3d 48. The appellate court also declined to follow the Second District, Division Two, opinion in Sipple v. City of Hayward (2014) 225 Cal.App.4th 349. The Supreme Court denied review in Sipple.
[May 30 update: Here is the issue as summarized by court staff (see here) — “Must a claimant for a local government tax refund comply with a local administrative review procedure prior to pursuing its remedies under the Government Claims Act (Gov. Code, § 810 et seq.), or does the Act preempt such a requirement under the doctrine of field preemption?”]
Indian tribe child support depublication
There was no petition for review, but the court granted a slew of depublication requests in Pateras v. Armenta. The now formerly published opinion by the Second District, Division Six, held “payments a father receives from an Indian tribe’s general welfare program are income in calculating child support,” even if those payments are not subject to federal income tax.
Division Six concluded Family Code section 4058(c) didn’t exclude the general welfare payments from child support income calculations. That statute excludes “income derived from any public assistance program, eligibility for which is based on a determination of need.” The appellate court found it dispositive that the father in the case “did not prove his tribal payments were need based for his ‘minimum necessary’ subsistence” and that the evidence didn’t establish “the tribal general welfare benefits are restricted for poor or low-income tribal descendants and are based on a need-based minimum subsistence level to qualify for the payments.” It also rejected an argument that its decision violates federal law and a federal interest to protect Indian tribes.
“Kill zone” depublication
The court denied review in In re Summers, but it depublished the Second District, Division Three, opinion in the case. Division Three denied a habeas corpus petition, rejecting claims of insufficient evidence to support a kill zone instruction, insufficient evidence to sustain attempted murder convictions, and instructional error.
Racial Justice Act dissenting vote
The court denied review in R.D. v. Superior Court, but Justice Goodwin Liu recorded a vote to grant. A divided, partially published Third District opinion held a pre-trial violation of the California Racial Justice Act (here and here) did not require the dismissal of gun charges against a minor. In denying a motion for release on electronic monitoring, a superior court judge said the minor was “a serious gang banger” who’s “got it in his blood, in his culture. He can’t get it out of his system.” That judge had no further involvement in the case.
The one-justice lead opinion concluded “dismissal may be a remedy for a prejudgment RJA violation only if requested under the authority of the state or federal constitution or ‘any other law’ and accompanied by the requisite showing under that authority.” A concurring opinion disagreed with some of the lead opinion’s reasoning. The dissent contended the minor was improperly denied the opportunity to argue why a dismissal of charges was a proper remedy for the RJA violation.
The opinion followed a grant-and-transfer order by the Supreme Court after the Third District had summarily denied the minor’s writ petition.
Dissenting vote on not resolving a conflict
Even though the Fourth District, Division Two, recognized, and chose sides in, a split of authority about interpreting Penal Code section 148(a)(1), which makes it a misdemeanor to “willfully resist[ ], delay[ ], or obstruct[ ] any . . . peace officer,” the Supreme Court denied review in People v. Serna, but that was over the dissenting recorded vote of Justice Joshua Groban.
Division Two said the conflict is whether the statute “includes an element of the perpetrator’s actual knowledge that the person they resisted, delayed, or obstructed was a peace officer.” Following the Sixth District decision in People v. Mackreth (2020) 58 Cal.App.5th 317 and disagreeing with the Sixth District In re A.L. (2019) 38 Cal.App.5th 15 opinion, Division Two concluded “section 148(a)(1) does not require the defendant knew they resisted, delayed, or obstructed a police officer”; that the defendant “reasonably should have known” is sufficient.
The Supreme Court denied review in both Mackreth and A.L.
More juvenile de facto LWOP resentencing dissenting votes
Justices Liu and Kelli Evans recorded dissenting votes from the denial of review in People v. Olmos. In one of the shorter published opinions you’ll see, the Second District, Division Five, affirmed the denial of a resentencing petition filed by a defendant serving a 33-years-to-life prison term for murder and other crimes committed in 1996 when he was 17.
The defendant sought relief under Penal Code section 1170(d)(1), which permits resentencing “[w]hen a defendant who was under 18 years of age at the time of the commission of the offense for which the defendant was sentenced to imprisonment for life without the possibility of parole has been incarcerated for at least 15 years.” Although he wasn’t sentenced to life without parole, the defendant relied on the Fourth District, Division One, opinion in People v. Heard (2022) 83 Cal.App.5th 608, which held the statute denied equal protection by precluding a resentencing opportunity for those “who were sentenced to the functional equivalent of life without parole.” (There was no petition for review in Heard.) Division Five concluded the defendant’s sentence was not the “functional equivalent” of a life without parole term.
Justices Liu and Evans have previously dissented from the denials of review in similar cases. (See here.)
Unsealing clemency records
Two of Governor Gavin Newsom’s recent requests for Supreme Court recommendations to allow him to grant clemency (see here) drew motions from the San Bernardino County District Attorney’s office to unseal the records supporting the requests. The court yesterday returned the records to Newsom and gave him a month to resubmit them with a justification for keeping them secret.
This is what the court normally does with motions to unseal and the court will probably end up making redacted records available for viewing. (See here and here.)
The motions came in the requests to OK sentence commutations for David Fitts (serving life without parole) and Cleveland Lindley (serving 105 years to life).
