During the long time that retired Justice Kathryn Werdegar’s seat on the Supreme Court remained unfilled, Chief Justice Tani Cantil-Sakauye suggested the court was waiting to be at full strength before scheduling oral argument for cases in which the remaining permanent justices were tentatively deadlocked 3-3 on the outcome. It’s possible that those cases are still on hold.
To date, there have been 36 opinions filed in cases argued since Justice Joshua Groban joined the court in early January, and none of them appear to be among the stuck cases. Of the 36, none have been 4-3 decisions, which is what you’d expect in a previously deadlocked case. Two were 5-2 decisions and two were 6-1; the rest were unanimous.
There are 13 more argued cases that have yet to be decided. Maybe some of those are ones that were stuck.
Two possible candidates were argued on the late-May calendar. In People v. Aledamat, during the vacancy, only three permanent justices voted for review and the court brought in a pro tem justice, who cast the fourth vote to hear the case. The other is In re Ricardo P., in which the court granted review in February 2016 and sent an oral argument letter over two years ago. We should see opinions in those cases within the next three weeks.
