(Subscription required) Gov. Gavin Newsom's choice to replace Justice Martin J. Jenkins on the state Supreme Court will either strengthen the majority that has resisted challenges to convictions and sentencing or provide support for Justice Goodwin H. Liu and Justice Kelli M. Evans, who have frequently dissented.

Proposition 36, approved by voters last year, gave prosecutors the ability to charge people convicted of various third-time drug offenses with a so-called treatment-mandated felony – a choice between behavioral health treatment or up to three years in jail or prison. In the law’s first six months, 9,000 people were charged with a treatment-mandated felony and nearly 15% — or 1,290 people — elected treatment.

California lawmakers made major changes to the state’s car-buying rules this year, including a  controversial rewrite of the state law that allows buyers to get their money back if they are sold a defective vehicle and a right to return a used vehicle within three days.

A District Court judge’s statement in a wrongful death case that a defendant’s bid for a judgment as a matter of law could be made “at the end of the case” does not excuse the County of San Bernardino’s noncompliance with a court rule saying that any such motion must be made “before the case is submitted to the jury,” the Ninth U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals has declared.