As we’ve done for past terms (here, here, and here), we’ll do a statistical recap of the Supreme Court’s 2025–2026 term in two parts. Today, we’re looking at numbers for categories other than those relating to the court’s opinions. The stats were gathered by my review of blog posts about the court’s conferences during the term. Miscounting by me is always a possibility.
The Supreme Court doesn’t have an official term, unlike the U.S. Supreme Court, but September 1 to August 31 is a logical unofficial term because the court doesn’t hear oral arguments in July or August and, due to the 90-day rule, opinions in cases argued before the summer hiatus normally file by the end of August.
Straight grants
There were 33 straight grants, twice as many in civil cases (22) as in criminal cases (11). (Prior terms: 2024–2025 — 48 straight grants, 26 in civil cases and 22 in criminal cases; 2023–2024 — 35 straight grants, 22 civil and 13 criminal; 2022–2023 — 46 straight grants, 27 civil and 19 criminal.)
Included in our count of the 33 are several review-granted equivalents: 1 order to show cause in an original writ proceeding, 2 agreements to answer questions posed by the Ninth Circuit, and a grant-and-hold case that was un-held.
Grant-and-Holds
The court granted-and-held 140 criminal cases and 26 civil cases. (Prior terms: 2024–2035 — 344 criminal cases and 31 civil cases; 2023–2024 — 193 criminal cases and 45 civil cases; 2022–2023 — 177 criminal cases and 32 civil cases.)
Grant-and-hold dispositions (see here)
Not including the one un-hold case, which we counted as a straight grant (see above), the court dismissed review in, or remanded to the Courts of Appeal for reconsideration, 180 criminal and 46 civil grant-and-hold cases.
Depublications
The court depublished 8 Court of Appeal opinions, 5 in civil cases and 3 in criminal cases. (Prior terms: 2024–2025 — 22 total, 13 in civil cases and 9 in criminal cases; 2023–2024 — 5 total, 3 in civil cases and 2 in criminal cases; 2022–2023, 15 total, 11 in civil cases and 4 in criminal cases.)
Not counted are opinions depublished by a Supreme Court grant-and-transfer order directing the Court of Appeal to vacate its prior opinion (see here).
Recorded dissents
As in last term, there were lots of recorded dissents from denials of review, mostly in criminal cases and the leading dissenters by far were Justices Liu and Evans, with Justice Groban a distant, but substantial, third. Also like last term, many of Justices Liu’s and Evans’s votes came in cases regarding juvenile and youthful offender sentencing.
There were 199 dissenting votes in 130 different cases. 169 votes came in 106 criminal cases and there were 30 dissents in 24 civil cases. (Prior terms: 2024–2025 — 159 dissenting votes in 98 separate cases, 143 votes in 83 criminal cases and 16 votes in 15 civil cases; 2023–2024 — 66 recorded dissents, 58 in criminal cases and 8 in civil cases; 2022–2023 — 33 recorded dissents, 22 in criminal case and 11 civil cases.)
69 review denials garnered two dissenting votes, 63 criminal and 6 civil. The other 61 cases garnered just one vote, 43 criminal and 18 civil. There were no cases with three dissenting votes, possibly because, at least in part, in the final 10 months of the term with just six justices participating, a third vote would have required bringing in a Court of Appeal pro tem justice to break a tie. (See here.) (During the 2024–2025 term, three petitions for review — all in criminal cases — garnered three votes and there were two votes in 55 cases, all but one of them criminal.)
Here is the tally of dissenting votes by justice:
- Justice Liu: 86 dissenting votes (6 votes in civil cases; 80 in criminal). He voted with Justice Evans 62 times (3 civil; 59 criminal), with Justice Kruger once (a criminal case), and with Justice Groban once (a criminal case); 22 were solo votes (3 civil; 19 criminal).
- Justice Evans: 84 dissenting votes (5 in civil cases; 79 in criminal cases). She voted with Justice Liu 62 times (3 civil; 59 criminal) and twice with Justice Groban (1 civil; 1 criminal). 20 of her votes were solos (1 civil; 19 criminal).
- Justice Groban: 22 dissenting votes (17 in civil cases; 5 in criminal cases). He joined Justice Corrigan in dissent in 2 civil cases, Justice Evans in 2 cases (1 civil, 1 criminal), and Justice Liu in 1 criminal case. 17 were solo votes.
- Justice Corrigan: 2 dissenting votes, both in civil cases and both voting with Justice Groban.
- Justice Kruger: 1 dissenting vote, in a criminal case with Justice Liu.
- Justice Jenkins (who served only 2 months of the 2025–2026 term): 1 criminal case solo dissenting vote.
- Chief Justice Guerrero did not record any dissenting votes. We believe she’s recorded only one dissent from a review denial in her Supreme Court career, in September 2022. (Here; see also here.)
Separate Statements
Occasionally, a justice will issue a separate statement when the court denies review. There were 8 of those during the term.
- Justice Liu — who revived the separate statement practice in 2015 — authored 5 of the 8 separate statements. Only 1 was in dissent (a criminal case); the other 4 were concurring in denials of review (all in criminal cases). 2 of his concurrences were signed by both Justices Groban and Evans; 3 were signed by only Justice Evans (his dissent and 2 of his concurring statements). He signed 1 dissenting and 1 concurring statement, both by Justice Evans.
- Justice Evans filed 2 separate statements (both in criminal cases), 1 in dissent and 1 concurring. Justices Liu and Groban signed the concurrence and Justice Liu alone signed the dissent. She signed all 5 of Justice Liu’s separate statements.
- Justice Groban wrote 1 separate statement, a solo concurrence in a civil case. He signed 3 concurring statements, 2 by Justice Liu and 1 by Justice Evans.
- Chief Justice Guerrero and Justices Corrigan, Kruger, and Jenkins neither authored nor signed a separate statement.
Clemency approvals
The court granted requests by Governor Newsom to allow him to pardon 12 people and commute 9 sentences, including commutations of 3 life without parole sentences. It denied no requests. The grants were state constitutional prerequisites to the clemencies, because the 21 had been “twice convicted of a felony.”
Racial Justice Act OSCs and grant-and-transfers
The court ordered lower court hearings on 42 petitions alleging Racial Justice Act violations. (See here.)
Similarly, the court ordered a superior court hearing in Office of the State Public Defender v. Bonta, a writ petition alleging “California’s capital punishment scheme is administered in a racially discriminatory manner.” (See here.)
State Bar disciplinary proceedings
The disciplines that the court imposed on California attorneys included the disbarring of Trump lawyer John Eastman (see here; U.S. Supreme Court certiorari petition pending) and suspended the license of former State Bar executive director Joseph Dunn (see here).
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