After taking on four new cases last week, this week’s conference yielded no straight grants. With the court’s five-month-long vacancy, it was yet another conference with just six justices participating.
No Eastman ruling
The court pulled an “Office of the State Public Defender v. Bonta” with Eastman on Discipline, meaning the court put the matter on its conference list (see here), but made no ruling. However, this was only the first time the justices have done that with the Eastman case. With the OSPD case, it’s happened more than half a dozen times. (See here.)
Capital cases transferred and held
At the request of the First District, Division Four, Court of Appeal, the Supreme Court transferred to itself two death penalty resentencing appeals — People v. Daveggio and People v. Michaud — and is holding them pending a decision in People v. Mataele, itself a transfer, which court staff says “presents issues relating to the noncapital resentencing of a capital defendant following remand” (see here). Daveggio and Michaud are a bit different from Mataele.
In Mataele, the Supreme Court had affirmed the defendant’s death sentence, but remanded for the superior court to consider whether to strike some enhancements. (People v. Mataele (2022) 13 Cal.5th 372 (see here).) The superior court declined to strike some enhancements and the defendant appealed. The Supreme Court’s transfer order in Mataele directed the parties to brief “whether this court has exclusive jurisdiction over this appeal, or whether this appeal may be decided by the Court of Appeal. (See Cal. Const., art. VI, § 11, subd. (a); People v. Coleman (1991) 53 Cal.3d 949, 951, fn. 1.)”
In Daveggio and Michaud, after the Supreme Court had affirmed their death sentences (People v. Daveggio and Michaud (2018) 4 Cal.5th 790; see here), there were motions to resentence the defendants to life without parole and the motions were made by the district attorney. After a new district attorney successfully withdrew the resentencing motions, the defendants appealed. Those are the appeals that have now been transferred to the Supreme Court, the Court of Appeal saying, “It is unclear whether these appeals are correctly pending in the Court of Appeal or if they should be pending in the Supreme Court.”
Depublication: arbitration
The court denied review in Wise v. Tesla Motors, but it depublished the First District, Division Five, opinion.
Division Five overturned the denial of a motion to compel arbitration in a disability discrimination and retaliation employment case. Although rejecting Tesla’s argument that the Federal Arbitration Act preempts Civil Code section 1642 [“Several contracts relating to the same matters, between the same parties, and made as parts of substantially one transaction, are to be taken together”], it concluded that “the trial court should have severed the allegedly unconscionable terms [in a document other than the arbitration agreement] and enforced the arbitration agreement.”
Another headless PAGA grant-and-hold
Williams v. Tata Consultancy Services is yet another grant-and-hold for Leeper v. Shipt, Inc. (see here), in which the court limited the issues to: “1.) Does every Private Attorneys General Act (Lab. Code, § 2698 et seq.) (PAGA) action necessarily include both individual and non-individual PAGA claims, regardless of whether the complaint specifically alleges individual claims? 2.) Can a plaintiff choose to bring only a non-individual PAGA action?” The issues are of importance because individual claims must be arbitrated before non-individual claims can be litigated in court.
In an unpublished opinion, the Second District, Division Eight, affirmed the denial of the defendant’s motion to compel arbitration, holding the plaintiff “asserted only a nonindividual PAGA claim that falls outside the scope of the parties’ arbitration agreement.”
There are many other Leeper grant-and-holds. (See recently here.)
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 Barno 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 relief based on his claim that the trial court’s statements during the sentencing hearing demonstrated racial or ethnic bias in violation of the Racial Justice Act. (See Pen. Code, § 745, subd. (a)(2).)”
The court has made many orders like this before. (See here and, recently, here.)
Gang-related crimes grant-and-transfer
The court granted review in In re Pitney and remanded to the First District, Division Three, which had summarily denied the habeas corpus petition in the case.
In its order denying the habeas petition, Division Three cited People v. Cardenas (2025) 18 Cal.5th 797, 825-828. Although the Supreme Court reversed the conviction and death penalty in Cardenas (see here), at the cited pages it rejected the defendant’s arguments that “there was insufficient evidence to show that he acted with the specific intent to further the criminal conduct of gang members, as both the gang enhancement statute and the special circumstance statute require” and that “insufficient evidence supported the jury’s finding that the shooting was committed for the benefit of, at the direction of, or in association with a criminal street gang.”
Dissenting vote: murder resentencing
The court denied review in People v. Brown, but Justice Liu recorded a dissenting vote.
The Second District, Division Five, unpublished opinion affirmed the denial of a resentencing petition under Penal Code section 1172.6, part of SB 1437, 2018 legislation that limited criminal liability for felony murder and allowed for resentencing of certain defendants convicted under pre-SB 1437 law. The defendant had been convicted of first degree murder over 40 years ago, but the superior court found he had not made a prima facie case of resentencing eligibility.
Division Five held, “in light of the introductory instructions on special circumstances and the felony murder special circumstance instructions, the jury necessarily found that [the defendant] was guilty of felony murder as defined under the current laws.” (Capitalization omitted.)
Criminal case grant-and-holds
There were no criminal case grant-and-holds this week, although the Daveggio and Michaud cases (above) are the practical equivalents.
