The legislation is eight years old, but Senate Bill 1437 murder resentencing cases continue to take up inordinate space on the Supreme Court’s docket, as the court took a second SB 1437 matter this month (see here) at its conference yesterday.
It was one more short-handed conference, with just six justices participating, because Governor Newsom has left unfilled a nine-month-long vacancy (nine months!) on the court, a situation that might still continue for a while.
Review granted: evidence at murder resentencing hearing
The court granted review in People v. Pineda, another case concerning what evidence a court can consider in ruling on a resentencing petition under Penal Code section 1172.6, part of SB 1437, landmark 2018 legislation that limited criminal liability for felony murder, eliminated it for murder under the natural-and-probable-consequences doctrine, and allowed for resentencing of certain defendants convicted under pre-SB 1437 law.
In Pineda, a published Second District, Division Eight, Court of Appeal opinion affirmed the denial of a resentencing petition, holding the superior court made the right decision for a wrong — but harmless — reason in considering an undercover police officer’s preliminary hearing testimony relating a co-defendant’s statements made to the officer that identified the defendant as the actual shooter who committed murder. The superior court also considered a recording of the co-defendant’s statements without finding that the co-defendant was unavailable.
Division Eight found no error “because the [superior] court rightly concluded [the statements] were against [the co-defendant’s] penal interest.” However, the appellate court held the superior court erred in saying it had considered the recording because the evidence “ ‘would have been admissible’ at trial,” when the statute requires the evidence to be admissible under the current Evidence Code. But the legal error was inconsequential, Division Eight said, because the officer’s “testimony and the other admissible testimony in the preliminary hearing provided substantial evidence to support the court’s finding.”
Pardon recommended
The court granted Governor Newsom’s request — made in May — for the constitutionally required recommendation that allows him to pardon Scott Soares.
The Governor’s requests stated, “In 1996, Mr. Soares was convicted of drug-related felony offenses and weapon possession.”
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 99 of his other requests. (Not counting 14 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.
Dissenting votes: dependency
Justices Liu and Evans recorded dissenting votes from the denial of review in In re Ace G. The Second District, Division Eight, in a 2-1 unpublished opinion, affirmed an order removing a child from his father’s custody “[b]ecause Father’s home contained sufficient drugs for sale and firearms.” The drugs and guns were found six weeks before the child’s birth and, at the time of the juvenile court’s orders, the father was in jail on murder charges.
The dissenting justice asserted “the juvenile court engaged in impermissible rampant speculation.” “There is no basis in the record to infer that because Father had guns and drugs in his childless home, he would continue to store guns and drugs accessible to Ace after Ace’s birth,” she wrote. Anyway, the dissent continued, “[n]othing in the record suggests Father, incarcerated with bail set at no bail, intended to exercise his right to physical custody over Ace, let alone how his doing so would put Ace in physical danger.” The majority countered, “While true that Father was arrested before Ace’s birth, we have no other evidence regarding his home because he was incarcerated after the search of his home and he was not released by the time the trial court considered the jurisdictional report.”
Dissenting vote: Racial Justice Act OSC denial
The court denied the pro per’s habeas corpus petition in In re McKinney, but Justice Evans recorded a vote to issue an order to show cause. The petition alleged a host of violations of California’s Racial Justice Act (see here, here, and here).
The court’s denial order says, “The petition does not satisfy the statutory requirements for the appointment of counsel or the disclosure of discovery under the Racial Justice Act.” More specifically, the court said, “Petitioner fails to allege particularized facts that support his claims based on alleged exhibitions of racial bias or that support a claim that petitioner was charged, convicted, or sentenced in a more severe manner than similarly situated individuals of other races, ethnicities, or national origins. [Citations.] Nor does petitioner describe or attach sufficient supporting documentary evidence concerning these claims.”
The court has issued many orders to show cause, returnable in the superior courts, on pro per RJA habeas corpus petitions. (See here and, recently, here.)
Criminal case grant-and-hold
For the second week, there was just one criminal case grant-and-hold case, another waiting for a decision in People v. Eaton (see here).
Grant-and-hold dispositions (see here)
Five cases that had been grant-and-holds for the May judicial-disqualification opinion in J.O. v. Superior Court (2026) 19 Cal.5th 753 (see here) were returned to the Courts of Appeal for reconsideration in light of J.O.
The court also removed from its docket one case that had been a grant-and-hold for two death penalty appeals raising Racial Justice Act issues — People v. Bankston (2026) 19 Cal.5th 786 and People v. Barrera (2026) 19 Cal.5th 919 (see here). The matter was remanded to the Court of Appeal for reconsideration in light of just Bankston. The case is People v. Stubblefield. More about Stubblefield here.
