News Release

Third Appellate District to Host Oral Argument in Historic Supreme Court Courtroom

The Court of Appeal, Third Appellate District will host its oral argument session during the week of May 15 in Room 500 of the Stanley Mosk Library and Courts Building, while technical upgrades are made to the Third District’s own courtroom.
May 12, 2023

SACRAMENTO—The Court of Appeal, Third Appellate District will host its oral argument session during the week of May 15 in Room 500 of the Stanley Mosk Library and Courts Building, while technical upgrades are made to the Third District’s own courtroom.

Room 500, the fifth-floor courtroom, is the site of some colorful California Supreme Court history. It was originally designed as the courtroom for the Supreme Court but has never been used for oral argument.

In the early 1900s, the Supreme Court planned to move its headquarters from San Francisco to Sacramento and occupy the building along with the Third Appellate District—with plans for the courtroom to be on the fifth floor.

But Chief Justice William Waste, who took office in 1926, refused to move the court into what he called an “attic.” (Historians note that facing Sacramento summers before modern air conditioning, he may have been justified.) Architects recreated the courtroom on the first floor, and the fifth-floor courtroom is now used as a public meeting room, complete with air conditioning.

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