Here’s part II of the recap of Wednesday’s Supreme Court conference. Part I is here.
Dissenting vote: anti-SLAPP dismissal of civil rights claim
The court denied a pro per’s petition for review in Alexander v. City of Santa Cruz, but Justice Kelli Evans recorded a vote to grant. The wheelchair-bound plaintiff alleged a police officer threatened him with arrest at a post office, where he said he was waiting for help in printing out and filing a complaint under the federal Americans with Disabilities Act.
In a 2-1 unpublished opinion, the Sixth District Court of Appeal affirmed the superior court’s granting of an anti-SLAPP motion filed by the City and defendant police officers. The majority concluded that the claims of arrest threats arose from the officer’s “protected speech in the context of his official law enforcement actions” and that the plaintiff had not stated legally sufficient causes of action.
The dissenting justice asserted that having the anti-SLAPP statute cover officers’ statements during their official duties might be “only a step beyond existing case law, . . . [but] it is a step too far.” “The Legislature did not enact the anti-SLAPP statute to protect the ability of law enforcement officers to perform their official duties,” the dissent stated, “That ability is protected already by official immunity statutes.”
Dissenting votes: dependency
Justice Evans also dissented from the denial of review in In re S.M. So did Justice Joshua Groban. The Fourth District, Division Two, in an unpublished opinion, upheld a juvenile court order removing a baby from his parents’ custody.
The opinion addressed various issues, so the reason for the dissents is not clear. (There’s a fairly simple cure for that: When a message vote’s message is muddled.) One argument Division Two rejected was that the baby could have stayed in the father’s care with the paternal grandmother; the court concluded, “the paternal grandmother’s visa had expired and, by the time of the removal order, it was unclear whether her visa would be renewed.”
Dissenting vote: murder conviction affirmed
Justice Goodwin Liu recorded a dissenting vote from the denial of review in People v. Brown, in which a Third District unpublished opinion affirmed a second degree murder conviction for aiding and abetting a prison yard killing of another inmate.
The Court of Appeal rejected multiple arguments — “(1) the trial court instructed the jury incorrectly on implied malice and aiding and abetting implied malice murder; (2) insufficient evidence supported a finding that his actions were the proximate cause of the death, (3) alternatively, trial counsel rendered ineffective assistance” — and the dissenting vote is unexplained, so it’s not clear which issue or issues attracted Justice Liu’s attention. (There’s a fairly simple cure for that: When a message vote’s message is muddled.) However, Justice Liu (along with Justice Evans) has shown interest in the implied malice murder issue. (See here, here, here, and here.)
Dissenting votes: juvenile de facto LWOP resentencing
Justices Liu and Evans recorded dissenting votes from the denial of review in People v. Recarte and People v. Walton, and Justice Evans alone dissented from the denial of review in People v. Mai. In unpublished opinions, the Second District, Division Four, in Recarte, the Fifth District in Walton, and the Sixth District in Mai affirmed denials of resentencing petitions by defendants serving long sentences — 40 years to life for murders committed when they were 17 in Recarte and Mai and 38 years to life for murder committed at 16 in Walton.
The defendants sought relief under Penal Code section 1170, which generally permits resentencing of some defendants who were sentenced to life without parole for crimes committed when they were minors, and under the Fourth District, Division One, decision in People v. Heard (2022) 83 Cal.App.5th 608, which held that, consistent with equal protection principles, resentencing must also be allowed for those sentenced to the “functional equivalent of life without parole.”
The Recarte and Mai opinions both held the defendants’ sentences were not functionally LWOP sentences because the defendants would be eligible for parole at age 57. The Recarte court said the defendant’s “parole eligibility date does not ‘ “fall[ ] outside [his] natural life expectancy” ’; thus, his sentence does not ‘effectively condemn[ ] [him] to die in prison.’ ” Similarly, the Mai court assured that a defendant paroled at 57 “will have the opportunity to rejoin society for a sufficient period to achieve reintegration as a productive and respected member of the citizenry.”
The Walton court took a different approach, finding no equal protection violation in denying resentencing to any juvenile offenders sentenced to less than life without parole. The Fifth District concluded that “[t]he Legislature could rationally determine that ‘providing the relatively small number of juvenile offenders otherwise certain to die in prison an opportunity to obtain a lesser sentence was the most pressing priority’ ” and that, “[w]hile this excludes juveniles with lengthy term-of-years sentences that do not guarantee their death in prison, the Legislature is ‘entitled to proceed incrementally, so long as it proceeds rationally, in “walking [the] tightrope” of the political process.’ ”
The Supreme Court last year granted review in People v. Munoz to decide whether a juvenile homicide offender sentenced to 50 years to life in prison is entitled to recall and resentencing under section 1170(d)(1), on the ground that the sentence is the functional equivalent of life imprisonment without parole. (See here; see also here.)
50 years to life sentences are getting the court’s attention; lesser, but still very lengthy, sentences, not so much. (See here.)
The Recarte, Walton, and Mai denials of review are “without prejudice to any relief to which defendant might be entitled after this court decides . . . Munoz.” Justices Liu and Evans have dissented in similar cases. (See recently here.) It’s unclear why Justice Evans was the lone dissenter in Mai.
Grant-and-hold dispositions (see here)
Granting the petitioner’s motion, the court dismissed review in Acrisure of California, LLC v. Superior Court, which had been a grant-and-hold first for EpicentRx, Inc. v. Superior Court (2025) 18 Cal.5th 58 (see here) and then for Lathrop v. Thor Motor (see here).
At the parties’ joint request after settlement, the court dismissed review in Resendiz v. Canyon Restaurant, which had been a grant-and-hold for Leeper v. Shipt, Inc. (see here and here).
