We were just talking about record votes at Supreme Court Wednesday conferences. Those occur when the court denies a petition for review and a justice has not only voted to grant the petition but also has requested that his or her vote be recorded in the court’s minutes. Such votes are relatively rare and, in our conference report posts, we note the record votes in civil cases. They can be important — retired Justice Marvin Baxter reported that he used his record votes to signal the appellate bar about his interest in issues that might be raised again in future petitions for review.
Well, at his very first Wednesday conference, nine days into his term on the court, Justice Mariano-Florentino Cuéllar cast a record vote. In Esper v. Superior Court, a case we understand involves the Sexually Violent Predator Act, Justice Cuéllar joined Justice Goodwin Liu to publicly note votes to grant the petition for review.
