At its conference yesterday, the court again didn’t straight grant any cases. Dating back to April 22, the last five conferences — three of them doubles — have produced just one straight grant (actually, it was an order to show cause on an original writ petition), and that one is essentially a companion case to an earlier, already-granted matter (see here and here).
This is Part I of the conference recap. Part II will report on a number of review denials, including those with dissenting votes.
Once again, with the court’s over-seven-month-long vacancy, it was another conference with just six justices participating.
Depublication: mental health diversion denial
The court denied review in People v. Nelson, but it granted the State Public Defender’s request to depublish the Second District, Division Six, Court of Appeal’s opinion, which affirmed a 12-year prison sentence for commercial burglaries and automobile taking. The appellate court held there was no abuse of discretion in imposing the sentence after denying mental health diversion because the superior court found “ ‘little to no evidence [appellant’s] mental health diagnos[es] played any factor in the charged offenses.’ ”
Division Six, quoting its own 15-year-old family law opinion, said “ ‘Where, as here, an appeal is premised upon facts expressly not credited by the trial court, i.e., an adverse factual finding, the appeal is frivolous . . . .’ ” The court then said, “We need not decide if the appeal is ‘frivolous.’ But we do decide that appellant’s contentions are without merit.”
The opinion’s author also filed a separate concurrence harshly criticizing the Fourth District, Division Three, decision in People v. Cabalar (2025) 117 Cal.App.5th 41, which found a diversion denial to be an abuse of discretion “[b]ecause the [superior] court in this case based its denial of diversion on findings unsupported by substantial evidence, matters inconsistent with legislative policy and purpose, and a misunderstanding of a characteristic of the diversion program.” There was no petition for review in Cabalar.
Clemency recommendations
The court granted Governor Newsom’s requests — made a month ago — for the constitutionally required recommendations that allow him to pardon Lonnie Alexander and Veronica Rael.
The Governor’s requests stated:
“In 1990 and 1993, Mr. Alexander was convicted of drug-related felony offenses.”
“In 2002 and 2004, Ms. Rael was convicted of drug-related felony offenses. In 2006, Ms. Rael was convicted of grand theft.”
Newsom has a nearly perfect clemency record: he withdrew one request before a ruling, but the court — applying a deferential standard (see here and here) — has approved all 96 of his other requests. (Not counting 13 requests that are still pending.) That’s better than former Governor Jerry Brown, who had the court without explanation block 10 intended clemency grants. The denial of a request implies that a clemency grant would be an abuse of power.
Criminal case grant-and-holds
There were nine criminal case grant-and-holds: one waiting for finality of last month’s People v. Mitchell decision (see here); one more on hold for People v. Allen (see here and here); four more holding for People v. Munoz (see here), including one grant on the court’s own motion at a district attorney’s request after the Attorney General conceded in the Court of Appeal that a reversal was necessary; and three waiting for People v. Eaton (see here).
Grant-and-hold disposition (see here)
Three cases that had been long-term grant-and-holds for the December decision in People v. Kopp (2025) 19 Cal.5th 1 (see here) were returned to the Courts of Appeal for reconsideration in light of Kopp. Because it took so long to decide Kopp, the three remanded cases had been on the Supreme Court’s docket for quite some time. Reviews in the three cases were granted between November 2019 and June 2020.
