After four conferences in a row without a straight grant, yesterday’s Supreme Court conference yielded two. Those and other notable actions are recapped here. This is part I of the recap, covering everything but dissenting votes in four cases, which will be discussed in part II.
Review: prisoner credit regulations
The court granted limited review in Criminal Justice Legal Foundation v. Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation to determine whether the Third District Court of Appeal’s published opinion improperly invalidated certain department regulations. At issue is the part of 2016’s Proposition 57 — which voters enacted to ease prison overcrowding — that gives the department “authority to award credits earned for good behavior and approved rehabilitative or educational achievements,” “notwithstanding anything in this article or any other provision of law.” (Cal. Const., art. I, section 32(a)(2).)
Rejecting various arguments made by the plaintiffs, the appellate court held Prop. 57 “properly delegates to the department the authority to award credits beyond existing statutory limits.” It nonetheless held the initiative “does not authorize the department to use credits to advance indeterminately-sentenced inmates’ minimum eligible parole dates in conflict with existing law.” “[A]warding credits and applying the credits awarded are two different things,” the Third District said, “and section 32 is silent on the latter.”
The Supreme Court said it will decide only the advance-parole-dates question. The court’s order includes this caveat: “The issue to be briefed and argued is limited to the issue raised in the [department’s] petition for review.” Necessarily excluded are the issues raised in the plaintiffs’ answer to the petition.
[October 24 update: Here is the issue as limited by the court — “Does Proposition 57 authorize the California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation to award and apply earned credits to advance indeterminately sentenced persons’ minimum eligible parole dates?”]
Review: resentencing a capital defendant
The court also agreed to hear People v. Dixon. The partially published opinion of the Second District, Division Seven, held that a superior court could resentence a defendant who was sentenced to death and whose automatic appeal to the Supreme Court is still pending, but only “on the noncapital portions of his sentence[,] . . . not on the death sentence.” Division Seven concluded the trial court should have stricken four prior-prison-term enhancements under Penal Code section 1172.75.
The Supreme Court added in its order granting review that — “[i]n addition to the issues specified in the petition for review and answer” — the parties are to brief, “Did the superior court have jurisdiction to resentence defendant pursuant to Penal Code section 1172.75 when his appeal was pending before this court?”
Dixon seems related to People v. Mataele, in which the court granted review in May (see here) and which is expected to decide issues relating to the noncapital resentencing of a capital defendant following remand.
[October 24 update: Here are the issues as summarized by court staff (see here) — “(1) May a superior court modify a death judgment under the recall and resentencing procedure in Penal Code section 1172.75? (2) Did the Court of Appeal err in holding that the exclusivity provision of Penal Code section 1509 precludes modification of a death judgment under Penal Code section 1172.75? (3) Did the superior court have jurisdiction to resentence defendant pursuant to Penal Code section 1172.75 when his appeal was pending before this court?”]
Grant and transfer: Racial Justice Act discovery
The court granted review in People v. Jimenez and remanded to the Sixth District, which, in a belatedly partially published opinion, affirmed a special-circumstance murder conviction, rejecting a claim that California’s Racial Justice Act (see here and here) required dismissal of the special circumstance because of its racially disparate application. The appellate court concluded, “With utmost respect for the plausibility of [the defendant’s] legal theory, we find the report on which he relied to be logically infirm and its authors’ curation of the available data to omit—without explanation—necessary and apparently available information.” It also upheld the superior court’s denial of the defendant’s request for a continuance of sentencing so he could move to compel discovery.
The Supreme Court ordered the Sixth District “to vacate its decision and reconsider the cause in light of the impact, if any, of Assembly Bill No. 1071 (Stats. 2025, ch. 721).” AB 1071 was signed by the Governor just 10 days ago. The Legislative Counsel’s digest of the bill says it “authorize[s] the defendant in [RJA] proceedings to file a motion for disclosure of all relevant evidence related to a potential violation of the prohibition on the state seeking, obtaining, or imposing a criminal conviction or sentence on the basis of race, ethnicity, or national origin, as specified.”
The order to vacate depublishes the opinion.
Racial Justice Act OSCs
The court acted on three pro per habeas corpus petitions by issuing orders to show cause, returnable in the superior courts, why the petitioners are “not entitled to appointment of counsel pursuant to Penal Code section 1473, subdivision (e) [providing for the appointment of counsel for an indigent petitioner who alleges facts constituting a violation of the Racial Justice Act]” (see here and here).
In In re Maldonado, the alleged RJA violation concerns “statements made by the prosecutor referencing petitioner’s tattoos.” The alleged violations in the other two are considerably broader. The petitioner in In re Mitchell relies on “statistical data . . . demonstrating racial disparities in Three Strikes sentences imposed in Los Angeles County” and the In re Seamster petitioner asserts that “statistical data . . . demonstrating racial disparities in Three Strikes sentences imposed in Kern County” supports his claim.
The court has made numerous similar orders before. (See recently here.)
Grant and transfer: bail for sexual assault defendant
The court granted review in In re Bergstrom and sent the case back to the Fifth District, which had summarily denied the defendant’s habeas corpus petition. The appellate court was directed to decide the merits whether the defendant is “entitled to relief on the grounds: (1) Penal Code section 292 constitutes an ‘ “exten[sion] by legislative definition” ’ (Forster Shipbuilding Co. v. County of Los Angeles (1960) 54 Cal.2d 450, 456) of the terms ‘acts of violence’ and ‘great bodily harm’ as used in article I, section 12, subdivision (b) of the state Constitution; and (2) absent Penal Code section 292, it is not the case a ‘reasonable trier of fact could find, by clear and convincing evidence, a substantial likelihood that [petitioner]’s release would lead to great bodily harm to others’ (In re White (2020) 9 Cal.5th 455, 465 [see here]; People v. Caudillo (1978) 21 Cal.3d 562).”
Article I, section 12(b) requires defendants be released on bail, except for “[f]elony offenses involving acts of violence on another person, or felony sexual assault offenses on another person, when the facts are evident or the presumption great and the court finds based upon clear and convincing evidence that there is a substantial likelihood the person’s release would result in great bodily harm to others.” Penal Code section 292 “clarif[ies]” that any of a number of specified sex crimes “shall be deemed to be a felony offense involving an act of violence and a felony offense involving great bodily harm.”
Criminal case grant-and-holds
There were two criminal case grant-and-holds: one more waiting for a decision in In re Hernandez (see here, here, and here) and one more on hold for People v. Espino (see here).
Grant-and-hold disposition (see here)
Yazdi v. San Diego County Credit Union was a grant-and-hold (see here) waiting for the August arbitration-forfeiture opinion in Hohenshelt v. Superior Court (2025) 18 Cal.5th 310 (see here). The Yazdi parties stipulated to have the court dismiss review due to a settlement and the court obliged.
