The Supreme Court took on one more new case at its busy double conference on Wednesday. (Conference results are here.)
Once again, with the court’s over-six-month-long vacancy, it was another conference with just six justices participating.
Three-justice separate concurring statement
Three-justice separate statement concurs in felony murder resentencing denial of review.
OSC: ballot seizure
The court issued an order to show cause in Cervantes v. Bianco, in which the UCLA Voting Rights Project filed an original writ petition seeking an order to require Riverside County Sheriff and Republican gubernatorial candidate Chad Bianco to return over 600,000 ballots he seized that had been cast in the county at the November 2025 election. Counsel on the petition includes Democratic gubernatorial candidate Xavier Becerra.
The issue as summarized by court staff (see here) is: “Are petitioners entitled to writ relief directing that cast ballots be returned to the county registrar of voters, on the ground that their seizure by law enforcement pursuant to search warrants violated the Elections Code?”
Cervantes is directly related to Attorney General v. Bianco. The court early last month granted the Attorney General’s petition for review in a writ proceeding concerning his authority to order the Sheriff to stop investigating the election. The Sheriff filed a written return last week.
The court said it will consider the Cervantes petition “on an expedited basis and does not anticipate granting any requests for extensions of time unless supported by specific and compelling good cause.”
More about both cases here, here, and here.
Another DMV hearing grant-and-hold
Chi v. Department of Motor Vehicles is another grant-and-hold for Romane v. Department of Motor Vehicles (see here), in which the court limited the issue to, “Under what circumstances does an administrative per se [APS] hearing officer’s relationship with the Department of Motor Vehicles (DMV) violate a driver’s due process right to an impartial adjudicator by creating an unacceptable risk of bias during a DMV driver’s license suspension hearing?”
The First District, Division Five, Court of Appeal’s published opinion in Chi disagreed with the Fourth District, Division One, Romane decision and the opinions of the Fifth District in Knudsen v. Department of Motor Vehicles (2024) 101 Cal.App.5th 186 and of the Fourth District, Division Three, in Clarke v. Gordon (2024) 104 Cal.App.5th 1267 [a 2-1 decision]. Division Five said those other cases “conflict with our Supreme Court’s precedent by employing an appearance of bias standard for assessing an adjudicator’s impartiality and by overlooking the presumption of impartiality that courts afford to adjudicators.”
There was no petition for review in Knudsen or Clarke, although the court denied a depublication request in Clarke. Briefing was completed in Romane in March.
Two more forum selection grant-and-holds
Diaz v. Thor Motor Coach and Performance Marketing v. Thor Motor Coach are additional grant-and-holds for Lathrop v. Thor Motor (see here), an un-hold case in which the parties were directed to brief these issues: “(1) Where a party alleges that enforcement of a forum selection clause would result in a waiver of the party’s unwaivable statutory rights, what is the showing necessary to enforce (or avoid enforcement) of such a clause, and which party bears the burden of proof on the issue? (2) Under what circumstances, if any, does a stipulation to apply California law in the selected forum rebut an allegation that enforcement of a forum selection clause would result in a waiver of a party’s unwaivable statutory rights? (3) If enforcement of a choice of law clause would result in a waiver of a party’s unwaivable statutory rights, is the choice of law clause severable from the remainder of the agreement?”
In Diaz, the Second District, Division Eight’s 2-1 published opinion held a forum selection clause to be unenforceable, even with a stipulation to apply California law. The Second District, Division Four, came to the same conclusion in its unpublished Performance Marketing opinion.
Horvitz & Levy is appellate counsel for the defendants in Lathrop, Diaz, and Performance Marketing.
Another Racial Justice Act OSC
The court issued an order to show cause, returnable in the superior court, in the pro per’s habeas corpus petition in In re Thomas involving a claim under California’s Racial Justice Act (see here, here, and here).
Cause is to be shown “why petitioner is not entitled to the appointment of counsel pursuant to Penal Code section 1473, subdivision (e)(5) [providing for the appointment of counsel for an indigent petitioner who pleads a plausible allegation of a violation of the Racial Justice Act] in light of statistical data cited by petitioner demonstrating racial disparities in Three Strikes sentences imposed in Los Angeles County and to the disclosure of discovery pursuant to Penal Code, section 745, subdivision (d) [providing for the disclosure of evidence relevant to a potential violation of the Racial Justice Act in the possession or control of the state].”
The court has made many orders like this before. (See here and, recently, here.)
Dissenting vote: license plate readers
The court denied review in Bartholomew v. Parking Concepts, Inc., but Justice Groban recorded a vote to grant.
The First District, Division Five, partially published opinion held that the plaintiff could sue a parking garage company for violating statutes requiring the implementation and making publicly available policies governing the collection and use of license plate information. The appellate court concluded that the collection and use of the information without implementing or making public the required policy is in itself harm enough to support a lawsuit.
Dissenting votes: youth offender parole denial
Justices Liu and Evans recorded dissenting votes from the denial of review in People v. Torres. In an unpublished opinion, the Second District, Division Five, rejected constitutional challenges to a 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. The defendant was convicted of three counts of first degree murder, committed when he was 23.
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 denial 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 four criminal case grant-and-holds: one more waiting for a decision in People v. Esquivias (see here), which will be argued next week; on more on hold for People v. Eaton (see here); one more waiting for People v. Munoz (see here); and one more holding for People v. Andrews (see here).
