The Supreme Court filed three unanimous opinions today, including one reversing a death penalty and another by Justice Mariano-Florentino Cuéllar, the first written by either of the court’s two newest justices.
The death penalty case is People v. Trujeque. In an opinion written by Justice Ming Chin, the court holds, among other things, that a prior second degree murder conviction supporting a special-circumstance finding violated the double jeopardy clause of the federal and state constitutions and that the prosecution should not have been allowed to refile another murder charge which supported a different special-circumstance finding.
Justice Cuéllar’s maiden opinion is in People v. Ford. Not deciding the statutory interpretation question whether a court retains jurisdiction to modify a criminal restitution award after a defendant’s probationary term has expired, the court holds that the defendant was estopped to challenge the modification because he had consented to the court’s continued jurisdiction. The opinion affirms the First District, Division Three, Court of Appeal.
The crime victim in Ford asked under Marsy’s Law to participate in the Supreme Court oral argument, but the court allowed her only to submit a letter. The court’s opinion doesn’t mention this, although it does summarize the victim’s testimony below.
Justice Cuéllar’s first opinion comes less than five months after he joined the court. We also now know that Justice Cuéllar will not be joining Justice Goodwin Liu in eschewing footnotes in his opinions.
The third opinion, in South Coast Framing, Inc. v. W.C.A.B., is authored by Justice Carol Corrigan. The court reinstates an award of workers’ compensation death benefits, finding sufficient evidence of a causal link between the worker’s industrial injury and his death. The Fourth District, Division One, Court of Appeal, had found a lack of substantial evidence to support causation, but the Supreme Court reversed, concluding that the Court of Appeal’s “analysis fails to honor the difference between tort law principles and the application of the workers’ compensation scheme.” The Supreme Court also criticized a practice guide — Dobrin, California Workers’ Compensation Law and Practice — on which the Court of Appeal had relied in imposing an improperly high causation standard.
