(Subscription required) The California Supreme Court held that a prosecutor's claim that a prospective juror was "less attentive" than others is not enough to support a peremptory strike, saying a 2022 California law aimed at prohibiting bias in juror removals requires more than a behavioral reason.

Div. One of the Court of Appeal for this district has affirmed an award of $356,223 in favor judgment creditors to compensate them for fees and costs they have paid in an effort to get the defendants to pay up on some of the more than $2.6 million awarded in 2021 in a fraud action, rejecting the contention that the trial judge impermissibly ordered remuneration for work done by a disbarred lawyer.

The California Supreme Court held yesterday, in the first opinion to address the statutory scheme governing peremptory challenges as of 2021, that the law requires a party, in asserting certain enumerated behaviors on the part of a potential juror as the reason for excluding the person, to explain why the conduct matters in the case to be tried in order to defeat a presumption of bias. even if the highlighted actions are confirmed by the judge.

Attorneys and parties filing challenges to judicial officers under Code of Civil Procedure §170.6 will be required, under a Los Angeles Superior Court general order, to disclose any other instances during the past year of acting to bump the jurist from a case.