The political question doctrine, which harks to the U.S. Supreme Court’s landmark 1803 decision in Marbury v. Madison, does not bar a putative class action against a biotechnology company that makes an anti-malaria drug that the four named plaintiffs say they were subjected to while in the U.S. military and which they allege caused them to suffer neuropsychiatric side effects, the Ninth U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals has held.

Gov. Gavin Newsom has signed legislation expanding a criminal defendant’s right to discovery in post-conviction proceedings relating to the filing of a petition for a writ of habeas corpus or a motion to vacate a judgment, removing provisions limiting the entitlement to cases involving strike offenses with significant sentences and defining the discoverable materials to include a prosecutor’s jury selection notes.

Associate Justice Martin J. Jenkins will retire from the California Supreme Court at the end of October after five years with the court and more than 35 years of judicial service.