The Supreme Court today denied rehearing in Johnson v. California Department of Justice by a 4-3 vote. That’s closer than the 5-2 result when the case was decided in January. The five-member majority on the opinion included retired Justice Marvin Baxter and a pro tem Court of Appeal justice. In deciding the rehearing petition, those two were replaced by new Justices Mariano-Florentino Cuéllar and Leondra Kruger. But only Cuéllar, not Kruger, joined the dissenting justices — Kathryn Werdegar and Goodwin Liu — in voting to grant the petition.
In Johnson, the Supreme Court overruled its own 2006 decision that had found unconstitutional a distinction in the Sex Offender Registration Act. Justice Werdegar’s dissent defended the earlier precedent, finding that the statutory differential treatment “has origins in irrational homophobia, continues to impact gay people in a differentially harsh way . . . and involves severe restrictions on liberty and privacy.”
Some blogger predicted the court would grant rehearing in Johnson.
