During its last term, the Supreme Court straight granted 35 petitions, down from 46 the previous term. (See here.) Cheryl Miller reported in The Recorder that Chief Justice Patricia Guerrero said it’s a temporary decline. “Stay tuned, if anyone despairs about the lack of grants,” the article quotes Guerrero as advising.
Speaking at the recent California Constitution Center conference on the Supreme Court (see also here), the Chief Justice “noted that overall state court case filings have declined significantly over the last decade, a trend that the COVID-19 pandemic intensified.” She said that the Racial Justice Act (see here, here, and here) has also had an impact — “The court has extended deadlines in some direct appeals to allow attorneys to fully brief arguments under the new law, a move that has at times reduced the number of cases coming before the justices.”
In her State of the Judiciary address in March, Guerrero cited the RJA as one of “some important landmark new laws . . . impacting [the court’s] workflow.”
[November 22 update: UC Law San Francisco has a comprehensive review of Guerrero’s conference appearance, including reporting that the Chief Justice “highlighted Californians’ high confidence in the state Supreme Court compared with its federal counterpart, attributing this trust to transparency and robust ethical standards.” (See also “We believe in the value of precedent,” Chief Justice says in her State of the Judiciary Address.)]
