NewsLinks is a collection of recent news items relating primarily to the California judicial branch. NewsLinks does not verify or endorse the accuracy or fairness of the news items, and the views expressed in opinions, editorials, and commentaries are those of the writers only. Some news articles linked from this page may require a subscription or be behind a paywall.

NewsLinks

  • California eyes nonlawyers to bolster legal aid

    Reuters
    June 22, 2026

    The California Supreme Court last week directed the State Bar of California to seek public comment on adopting a community justice worker program in which legal aid organizations would train and supervise nonlawyers to provide ​free limited legal services, though it did not specify what areas of law the program would cover.

  • SCOTUS won’t review role of race in police stops

    Courthouse News Service
    June 22, 2026

    The Supreme Court turned down an opportunity to consider the role of race in policing, refusing on Monday to review whether D.C. officers recovered a federal agent’s stolen gun through an unlawful police stop. The Trump administration asked the justices to prohibit courts from considering race as a relevant factor under the Fourth Amendment’s “free to leave” test.

  • Justice Joan K. Irion, 1953 - 2026

    Daily Journal
    June 23, 2026

    (Subscription required) Justice Joan K. Irion believed courts belonged not only to judges and lawyers, but to the public they served. Over more than two decades on the 4th District Court of Appeal, Division One, Irion became known as a rigorous appellate jurist, a probing questioner and one of California's most active advocates for civic education, judicial independence, and access to justice. 

    Related: California Courts Newsroom

  • Judicial Profile: Los Angeles County Judge Amanda Park

    Daily Journal
    June 23, 2026

    (Subscription required) Park presides over dissolution, parentage, custody, support and restraining-order matters at Van Nuys Courthouse. The people appearing before her are often navigating some of the most difficult periods of their lives. "There's always two sides," she said. "The truth is somewhere in the middle."

  • C.A. Says Cal/OSHA Is Entitled to Subpoena Uber Over Driver’s Death During Delivery

    Metropolitan News-Enterprise
    June 22, 2026

    Div. Eight of this district’s Court of Appeal held Thursday that a judge did not err in ordering Uber Technologies Inc. to hand over documents, pursuant to an administrative subpoena duces tecum issued by a state agency tasked with workplace safety, relating to a driver who purportedly fell down a flight of stairs during a delivery, leading to his death several days later.

  • Alien Registration Requirement Doesn’t Violate Jay Treaty

    Metropolitan News-Enterprise
    June 22, 2026

    The Ninth U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals has answered in the negative the question of whether the Nov. 19, 1794 “Treaty of Amity, Commerce, and Navigation, Between His Britannic Majesty and the United States of America”—commonly referred to as the Jay Treaty—is violated by requiring that Indigenous Americans born in Canada obtain an alien registration number as a requisite to purchasing a firearm in the U.S.

  • [U.S.] Supreme Court reinstates murder conviction in case of Etan Patz, missing New York City boy

    Associated Press
    June 22, 2026

    The Supreme Court on Monday reinstated a murder conviction in the 1979 disappearance of 6-year-old Etan Patz. The justices, by a 6-3 vote, granted an appeal from New York prosecutors who had urged them to undo a federal appeals court decision that overturned the verdict. The three liberal justices dissented.

    Related: Reuters, Bloomberg Law

  • California law that forbids ‘forced outing’ of trans students blocked by 9th Circuit

    Los Angeles Times
    June 22, 2026

    The U.S. 9th Circuit Court of Appeals blocked enforcement of a California law that seeks to prevent school employees from notifying parents about a student’s gender expression without their consent. The U.S. Supreme Court previously upheld a temporary block on the law after it was challenged, sending the case back to the appellate court.