There were no straight grants at yesterday’s double Supreme Court conference, but there were some notable decisions, including:
Death penalty writ decision deferral. See: Supreme Court further delays action on anti-death-penalty writ petition, suggesting a procedural problem might allow avoidance of a decision on the merits.
Separate statement about high sentence. See: In Racial Justice Act case, three-justice concurring statement isn’t about the Racial Justice Act.
Pre-trial detention grant-and-transfer. The court granted review in In re Avilas and sent the case back to the Fourth District, Division Two, Court of Appeal, which had summarily denied the habeas corpus petition in the case. The appellate court is to issue an order to show cause why relief should not be granted because the superior court “failed to address the feasibility of nonfinancial conditions of release and affordable bail with sufficient specificity to facilitate review of its detention orders. (In re Humphrey (2021) 11 Cal.5th 135, 154-156 [see here].)”
Resentencing grant-and-transfer. People v. Cooper is another grant-and-transfer. In a First District, Division Two, unpublished opinion, the appealing defendant not only didn’t get the resentencing relief he was seeking, he lost the bit of relief the superior court had granted him. Division Two said there was no resentencing jurisdiction under Penal Code section 1172.75 because “the record does not show that defendant was identified by the [Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation]” as serving a sentence that included a particular enhancement, an identification the statute makes a prerequisite to relief. The Supreme Court ordered reconsideration “in light of the Attorney General’s representation that the Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation ‘sent a spreadsheet to Humboldt County which identified Cooper as eligible for resentencing pursuant to [Penal Code] section 1172.75, and thus the trial court did have jurisdiction to conduct Cooper’s resentencing.’ ”
Another resentencing grant-and-transfer. People v. Riel is like People v. Cooper (above). The Third District’s unpublished opinion held the defendant was not entitled to counsel to pursue resentencing under Penal Code section 1172.75 because the superior court said it had not received the necessary jurisdictional information from the CDCR. As in Cooper, an Attorney General concession saved the defendant. The Supreme Court ordered the appellate court to reconsider “in light of the Attorney General’s representation that ‘the case list with Riel’s information was in fact transmitted to the Shasta County Superior Court, meaning that the jurisdictional issue identified by the courts below would not have been an impediment to considering resentencing.’ ”
Childhood sexual assault dissenting votes.
Justice Joshua Groban recorded dissenting votes from the denial of review in four cases — Roe 2 v. Superior Court, San Luis Coastal Unified School District v. Superior Court, and two matters entitled County of Ventura v. Superior Court (here and here) — challenging the constitutionality of 2019’s Assembly Bill 218, which eliminated any time limit on presenting a claim against a public entity “for the recovery of damages suffered as a result of childhood sexual assault.”
In each case, the Second District, Division Six, summarily denied a writ petition by a 2-1 vote, citing West Contra Costa Unified School District v. Superior Court (2024) 103 Cal.App.5th 1243. One justice wrote a dissenting statement in each, calling the West Contra Costa opinion “problematic” and urging Supreme Court review. The dissent argued, “The Legislature’s retroactive elimination of sovereign immunity for claims arising from childhood sexual assault no matter the length of the delay in presentation, while also allowing limitless liability, has no reasonable basis” and said that “[t]he fiscal impact flowing from the Legislature’s erasure of time-honored rules concerning the filing of claims for personal injury against public entities is unprecedented.”
Justice Groban also dissented when the Supreme Court denied review in West Contra Costa. (See here.)
Horvitz & Levy filed the petitions for review in West Contra Costa (here) and in San Luis Coastal (here).
Related: Sophia Bollag’s report in the San Francisco Chronicle, “A principal’s conviction shook this California town. Now it could bankrupt the school district”; Malcolm Maclachlan in the Daily Journal, “California schools face billions in liability under child sex abuse law.”
Medical information dissenting vote. The court denied review in People v. Baugh over Justice Groban’s recorded dissenting vote. The First District, Division Three, partially published 2-1 opinion dealt with a number of issues in rejecting most arguments raised by a defendant convicted of sex offenses against two minors. It’s thus unclear what got Justice Groban’s attention. (There’s a fairly simple cure for that: When a message vote’s message is muddled.) But the published portion of the opinion, and what drew a dissent, concerned the claim that, as the majority summarized, “the trial court erred and violated his constitutional rights to confrontation, compulsory process, and due process by refusing to order the People to obtain and disclose information as necessary for the defense to investigate whether one of the minors was treated for schizophrenia and to subpoena psychiatric records if they exist.” The dissent asserted “the trial court abused its discretion in declining to hold a hearing . . . at which the defense could have ascertained whether [the minor] had indeed been diagnosed with schizophrenia and could have identified any diagnosing or treating clinicians.”
Criminal case grant-and-holds.
There were seven criminal case grant-and-holds: one more waiting for a decision — or the finality of a decision — in two death penalty appeals, People v. Bankston and People v. Hin (see here) (Hin was decided last month); one more holding for People v. Emanuel (see here); four more waiting for People v. Rhodius (see here); and one on hold for both Bankston and another death penalty appeal, People v. Barrera.
The latter grant-and-hold is People v. Stubblefield, in which the Sixth District’s published opinion reversed a former pro football player’s rape conviction because of a California Racial Justice Act (here and here) violation. The case has received media attention. (See, e.g., Robert Salonga in the Mercury News, “California Supreme Court takes up rape conviction reversal for ex-49er Dana Stubblefield.”)
[March 14 update: We knew why one case is holding for Bankston and Hin (see here), but we didn’t know why Stubblefield is holding for Bankston and Barrera. Now we do. This week’s summary of cases accepted (see here) says the latter two death penalty appeals “include an issue involving the applicability of the California Racial Justice Act of 2020 (Pen. Code, § 745) on direct appeal.”]
