With only six justices participating at yesterday’s conference, the Supreme Court straight granted one case and made some newsworthy denials. Those and other actions are below.
Voter ID law nixed
See: Supreme Court leaves intact decision striking down Huntington Beach voter ID law.
Related: The Supreme Court doesn’t decide all important issues.
LWOP sentence commutation approved
See: Supreme Court OKs another LWOP sentence commutation.
Review granted: section 473 relief from default
The court agreed to hear Creditors Adjustment Bureau, Inc. v. Schofield, a case in which a Second District, Division Five, Court of Appeal unpublished opinion reversed the denial of a relief motion under Code of Civil Procedure, section 473(b) for attorney mistake. The superior court had ruled the motion was an improper reconsideration motion under section 1008 because the defendants had earlier moved under section 473(d) to set aside a void judgment.
Division Five concluded, “although both motions sought the same relief, they were not applications for the same order under section 1008 because they were based on different legal and factual predicates.” It sent the case back to the superior court “for further proceedings.”
Review denied: renaming law school approved
The court denied review in Hastings College Conservation Committee v. State of California. In a published opinion, the First District, Division Four, rejected a challenge to the constitutionality of legislation that eliminated from a law school’s name the name of the school’s founder and also California’s first Chief Justice, Serranus Hastings. The Legislature acted because it found, in part, that Hastings “promoted and financed Native American hunting expeditions in the Eden and Round Valleys, funding bounties resulting in the massacre of hundreds of Yuki men, women, and children” and that he “enriched himself through the seizure of large parts of these lands.”
The plaintiffs alleged the renaming breached an 1878 agreement and violated the Contracts Clauses of the state and federal Constitutions. Division Four held, “the appellation of a public institution or agency, or the qualifications of individuals entitled to manage it, are matters of public significance to which future changes may be deemed important to advance the institution’s obligation to serve the public interest.” Plaintiffs also asserted the legislation is a bill of attainder and an ex post facto law that violate both constitutions, but the appellate court found the arguments unavailing.
The former Chief Justice won a temporary victory in 2023 when Division Four affirmed in a published opinion the denial of State officials’ motion under the anti-SLAPP statute for an early dismissal of the action against them. The Supreme Court denied review of that decision, too. (See here.)
Grant-and-transfer: insufficient briefing opportunity
The court granted review in City of Morgan Hill v. Garcia and sent the case back to the Sixth District “with directions to grant the petition for rehearing and afford the parties the opportunity for supplemental briefing. (Gov. Code, § 68081; Cal. Rules of Court, rule 8.528(d).)” Section 68081 bars an appellate court from deciding a case “based upon an issue which was not proposed or briefed by any party to the proceeding” unless the court “afford[s] the parties an opportunity to present their views on the matter through supplemental briefing.”
The appeal concerned a condemnation action that was decided adversely to the property owner and the superior court’s ruling was affirmed in an unpublished opinion.
Another forum selection grant-and-hold
Taylor v. Thor Motor Coach, Inc. is another grant-and-hold 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?”
Horvitz & Levy is appellate counsel for the defendants in Lathrop and Taylor.
In Taylor, a Fourth District, Division One, unpublished opinion held, “an offer to stipulate to apply the Song-Beverly Act in litigation in an alternative forum is insufficient, standing alone, to meet a moving party’s burden to show that litigating in an alternative forum will not diminish a plaintiff’s unwaivable statutory rights.” However, it also found the record insufficient to find finally reject the defendant’s motion to stay the plaintiffs’ action based on a forum selection clause in its warranty documents, so it gave the defendant “another opportunity to meet its burden as the moving party and for the parties to submit evidence, if any, bearing on unconscionability or other applicable legal principles.”
Brady OSC
The court issued an order to show cause, returnable in the superior court, on the pro per’s habeas corpus petition in In re Coronado. Cause is to be shown “why petitioner is not entitled to relief as to his ineffective assistance of counsel claim or his claim under Brady v. Maryland (1963) 373 U.S. 83.”
In Brady, the U.S. Supreme Court held, “the suppression by the prosecution of evidence favorable to an accused upon request violates due process where the evidence is material either to guilt or to punishment, irrespective of the good faith or bad faith of the prosecution.”
Dissenting vote: childhood sexual assault
Justice Joshua Groban recorded a dissenting vote from the denial of review in S.C. v. Doe 1. In a published opinion, the Fifth District reversed a superior court’s denial of a motion to amend a complaint and its grant of a defense summary judgment in the plaintiff’s case alleging she was sexually assaulted around 40 years earlier when she was a foster child under the defendant’s care and control. The appellate court rejected arguments that the superior court rulings were appropriate because they were based on the original complaint’s allegations that the plaintiff was under the defendant’s care several years before she actually was. The plaintiff was trying to change the timing allegations.
Dissenting vote: murder resentencing
The court denied review in People v. Allan, but Justice Kelli Evans recorded a dissenting vote. It came after the Fourth District, Division One, took a second look at, and again affirmed, the denial of resentencing under Penal Code section 1172.6, part of Senate Bill 1437, 2018 legislation that eliminated murder liability under the natural and probable consequences doctrine, significantly limited the scope of the felony murder rule, and allowed for resentencing for some convictions obtained under prior law. After the first opinion, the Supreme Court granted-and-held and then remanded the case so Division One could reconsider in light of People v. Emanuel (2025) 17 Cal.5th 867 (see here and here).
The Allan defendant was convicted of two counts of first degree felony murder. The Emanuel court, in a unanimous opinion by Justice Evans, held that statutory changes make it crucial “to distinguish between defendants who participate in a violent felony posing only the foreseeable risk of death inherent in any such crime (who are not liable for deaths that may occur during its commission) from those who knowingly engage in criminal activities known to carry a grave risk of death (who are liable).” In an unpublished opinion on remand, Division One concluded that Emanuel “differs in several material respects from the present case.”
Dissenting votes: youth offender parole denial
Justices Goodwin Liu and Evans recorded dissenting votes from the denial of review in People v. Dixon. In an unpublished opinion, the Second District, Division Seven, 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 22 when he was convicted of two first degree murders with special circumstance and of premeditated attempted murder.
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.)
Dissenting votes: juvenile de facto LWOP resentencing
Justices Liu and Evans also recorded dissenting votes from the denial of review in People v. Fleming. The Second District, Division Two, affirmed the denial of a resentencing petition by a defendant serving a sentence of 40 years to life for an attempted gang murder committed when he was 17.
The defendant sought relief under Penal Code section 1170, which generally permits resentencing of some defendants who were sentenced to life without parole for crimes committed when they were minors, and under the Fourth District, Division One, decision in People v. Heard (2022) 83 Cal.App.5th 608, which held that, consistent with equal protection principles, resentencing must also be allowed for those sentenced to the “functional equivalent of life without parole.” Division Two held the defendant’s sentence was not a functional LWOP sentence and, in any event, “given defendant is eligible for section 3051, youthful offender parole, at age 41, even if his sentence were defined as de facto LWOP, it no longer operates as the ‘functional equivalent of LWOP.’ ”
The Supreme Court last year granted review in People v. Munoz to decide whether a juvenile homicide offender sentenced to 50 years to life in prison is entitled to recall and resentencing under section 1170(d)(1), on the ground that the sentence is the functional equivalent of life imprisonment without parole. (See here; see also here.)
50 years to life sentences are getting the court’s attention; lesser, but still very lengthy, sentences, not so much. (See here.)
The Fleming denial of review is “without prejudice to any relief to which defendant might be entitled after this court decides . . . Munoz.” Justices Liu and Evans have dissented in similar cases. (See recently here.)
Criminal case grant-and-holds
There were seven criminal case grant-and-holds: one more waiting for a decision in In re Hernandez (see here, here, and here); one more holding for People v. Morris (see here), which will be argued next week; two more waiting for People v. Espino (see here); two more on hold for People v. Lopez (see here), which, like Morris, will be argued next week (in one of the Lopez grant-and-holds, the court limited the issue to that raised in the People’s petition for review); and one more waiting for People v. Munoz (see here).
