Here’s a recap of some of the actions the Supreme Court took at its conference yesterday. Justice Carol Corrigan was absent and didn’t participate in any of the rulings.
Denial of petition to stop redistricting
See: Supreme Court denies Republicans’ effort to stop California redistricting . . . for now. We’re not sure if the court ruled on the petition at its conference, but the denial came on the same day as the conference, so we’re including it here.
Review: cutting attorney fees
The court granted review in Cash v. County of Los Angeles to resolve a conflict in the case law about the degree of specificity a superior court must use when explaining a ruling to award less-than-requested attorney fees.
The Second District, Division Five, Court of Appeal, in a 2-1 partially published opinion, affirmed a superior court ruling reducing attorney fees to a plaintiff who prevailed in a whistleblower retaliation employment case from a requested $735,310 to $455,546. The majority applied the very deferential abuse-of-discretion standard of review and rejected a “heightened scrutiny” standard favored by other Courts of Appeal. It agreed with the Second District, Division Seven, decision in Morris v. Hyundai Motor America (2019) 41 Cal.App.5th 24 and disagreed with the Fourth District, Division Two, opinion in Warren v. Kia Motors America, Inc. (2018) 30 Cal.App.5th 24 and the Second District, Division Three, opinion in Snoeck v. ExakTime Innovations, Inc. (2023) 96 Cal.App.5th 908.
There was no petition for review in Warren. The court denied review in Snoeck. There was no petition for review in Morris, but the Supreme Court denied five depublication requests. (Horvitz & Levy filed two oppositions — on behalf of two separate entities — to the requests.)
The Division Five dissent presciently noted “the split in Court of Appeal authority . . . .marks this case as a good candidate for a grant of Supreme Court review.” It criticized the majority for “not . . . mak[ing] plain the stakes of the dispute for civil rights plaintiffs, consumer advocates, and public interest litigants.” Instead of a very deferential standard of review, the dissent proposes, “if a court is going to take a meat cleaver rather than a slicing knife to an attorney fees request in a case where the Legislature has authorized recovery of fees for good public policy reasons, the court should have a correspondingly greater obligation to justify its choice of that blunt tool and thereby enable meaningful appellate review of its award.”
[August 22 update: Here are the issues as summarized by court staff (see here) — “(1) Did the trial court’s across-the-board reduction of the fees requested by plaintiff’s counsel trigger heightened scrutiny of its fee order on appeal? (2) Did the trial court commit reversible error in reducing the fee request on an across-the-board basis?”]
Review dismissed, opinion figuratively depublished: prosecutorial discretion
The court dismissed review as moot in Association of Deputy District Attorneys for Los Angeles County v. Gascón (it also changed the case name, replacing Gascón with Hochman as the defendant), number 2 on our list of the oldest unargued, non-capital cases on the court’s docket.
The court also ordered that the Second District, Division Seven, published opinion is from now on “not citable and nonprecedential.” (See rule 8.1115(e).) Because the opinion was long ago published in the official reports, it couldn’t be depublished, but the court’s order has the same effect.
The plaintiff Association moved in December 2024 to dismiss review as moot. The motion relied on the newly elected Los Angeles County District Attorney’s rescinding of his predecessor’s Three Strikes policy that was at issue in the case. (See here.) More about the case here, here, and here.
Horvitz & Levy filed one of the amicus briefs in the case, supporting the plaintiff Association.
Justice Joshua Groban was recused.
Racial Justice Act OSC
The court issue an order to show cause, returnable in the superior court, in the pro per’s habeas corpus petition in In re Delariva. Cause is to be shown “why petitioner is not entitled to appointment of counsel pursuant to Penal Code section 1473, subdivision (e), in light of statistical data provided by petitioner demonstrating racial disparities in the prison populations and racial disparities in sentencing under special circumstances law in Riverside County.” The statutory provision is part of the California Racial Justice Act (here and here).
The court has made orders like this before. (See recently here.)
LPS conservatorship grant-and-transfer
The court granted review in In re A.G. and transferred it back to the Third District, which had summarily denied the habeas corpus petition in the case. The Court of Appeal is to issue an order to show cause, returnable in the superior court, “why the relief prayed for should not be granted. (See Welf. & Inst. Code, § 5358, subd. (a)(2); see also San Joaquin County Public Conservator’s answer filed with this court on July 22, 2025, at p. 6 [stating petitioner “is not currently occupying one of the 12 formally designated [jail-based competency treatment] beds”].) Section 5358 is in the part of the Lanterman-Petris-Short Act concerning conservatorships for persons with a grave disability.
More dissenting votes for review about youth offender parole denial
Justices Goodwin Liu and Kelli Evans recorded dissenting votes from the denial of review in People v. De La Cruz. In an unpublished opinion, the Second District, Division Two, rejected constitutional challenges to the statute that prevents parole hearings for defendants serving life without parole sentences for special circumstances murders committed when older than 17 and younger than 26.
In People v. Hardin (2024) 15 Cal.5th 834, the Supreme Court found unavailing an equal protection attack. (See here.) Justices Liu and Evans dissented there. After Hardin, they have been regularly dissenting from review denials in youth offender parole cases, including once with a separate statement asserting that cruel-or-unusual-punishment issues should be addressed. (See here and recently here; see also here.)
Criminal case grant-and-holds
There were just two criminal case grant-and-holds this week: one more waiting for a decision in People v. Superior Court (Guevara) (see here and here), which was argued in June, and one more on hold for People v. Eaton (see here).
Grant-and-hold dispositions (see here)
The court dismissed review in 32 cases that had been grant-and-holds waiting for the June sentencing retroactivity decision decision in People v. Rhodius (2025) 17 Cal.5th 1050. (See also below about other Rhodius grant-and-holds.)
New lead case for grant-and-holds: Prior-prison enhancement resentencing
Last month, the court un-held People v. Espino, which had been a grant-and-hold for People v. Rhodius and People v. Montgomery, and ordered briefing. (See here.) It also at the same time converted 36 other Rhodius grant-and-holds to Espino grant-and-holds. Last week, 39 more Rhodius grant-and-holds became Espino grant-and-holds. (See here.) This week, the court converted yet another eight Rhodius grant-and-holds. (See also above regarding dismissal of review in other Rhodius grant-and-holds.)
