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(Subscription required) Election challenges are based on fact, theory, emotional reasons, and disputes over ballot titles, credentials, and the constitutionality of initiatives, Chief Justice Tani Cantil-Sakauye said Thursday.

(Subscription required) One thing that sets her apart, Huang said, is Meredith requires law enforcement to always meet its burden of proof. In one recent case, he said, the commissioner dismissed a speeding ticket because the officer failed to show he had done the proper maintenance to calibrate his radar speedometer, drawing its results into question.

Speaking at a forum largely filled with state employees in downtown Sacramento, Cantil-Sakauye said the broad range of judges that have been appointed over the last two decades has the judiciary primed to face and adapt to upcoming challenges, such as another recession and a sweeping consumer privacy law promising to spark a flood of litigation.

Topics include civics education, bail, fines and fees, diversity of the judiciary, the Supreme Court’s frequent unanimity, homelessness, federal immigration arrests in California’s courts, Proposition 66 and the death penalty, language access to the courts, domestic violence, and anticipated short-fuse 2020 election law cases.

At her annual meeting with the media yesterday, the Chief Justice disclosed that, after apparently doing some planning in the last six months, she intends to stay put. “This is the best job,” she’s quoted as saying.

(Subscription required) Chief Justice Tani Cantil-Sakauye defended the current system in which judges must face voters in elections during a wide-ranging discussion Wednesday, but she also said she favors longer terms for appellate justices and supported Los Angeles County judges’ political action committee to fight challengers.

The California Supreme Court today announced the reappointment of three current members of the Supreme Court Committee on Judicial Ethics Opinions (CJEO), an independent committee that helps inform the judiciary and public on judicial ethics.

(Subscription required) While nearly $40 million was spent nationwide in 2017 and 2018 seeking to influence 48 judicial elections for 21 state Supreme Courts, not a dollar was spent in California, according to a study released Wednesday by The Brennan Center for Justice at New York University School of Law.

(Subscription required) But Kraut said community service is an option for those who can't afford the fine, an option she invites defendants to pursue and something she'll always allow in lieu of payment. That goes for all traffic cases, too.

Talking to reporters at an annual gathering in San Francisco, Cantil-Sakauye called her post as chief justice “the greatest job” and said “I don’t know where you go from this.”

A judge on California’s top court implored the Legislature on Wednesday to bar a “pervasive” police practice of using deception to obtain confessions from suspects who have invoked their right to remain silent.

Justice Goodwin Liu recorded a vote to grant. Continuing a practice he revived several years ago, he accompanies this recorded vote with a detailed separate statement explaining why the court should have heard the case. He also includes a plea to the Legislature to address the Miranda issue “in light of this court’s reluctance to intervene.”

The Supreme Court today cleared the way for Governor Gavin Newsom to commute the sentences of Kristopher Blehm and Jose Ledesma. The court’s approvals are constitutionally required because the two clemency candidates have been convicted of multiple felonies.

The Supreme Court on Monday declined to hear a case challenging the way local government across the U.S. deal with home developers. The decision leaves intact local governments’ power to force private developers to build affordable housing.

The Brennan Center for Justice at NYU Law has released a new analysis of campaign spending nationwide in the 2017-2018 state supreme court elections, finding that $39.7 million went into races for 48 judgeships in 21 states.

With the tap of a computer key, prosecutors in Los Angeles and Chicago plan over the coming weeks to erase tens of thousands of marijuana convictions from people’s criminal records, a key part of a progressive crime-fighting strategy that is seeking to rectify the wrongs of a decades-long drug war.

(Subscription required) The California Supreme Court recently decided not to depublish a recent 2nd District Court of Appeal opinion that misstates the law in a manner harmful to lead agencies and the regulated community.

(Subscription required) “In my view, the goal in family law cases is to try to take a difficult situation — and unwinding a relationship is inherently difficult — and to take that difficult situation and make it less difficult,” Seabolt tells everyone in the courtroom during a prepared speech. “The best way to do that is for each of you to try to reach an agreement with the other party.”

(Subscription required) California’s courts are in line for a 1% increase, about $22 million, in the new fiscal year on their nearly $2.2 billion annual budget, according to documents released late last month by the Legislative Analyst’s Office. The chair of the Assembly Budget Committee is going to take a close look at court funding for the 2020-21 fiscal year but declined to make any specific commitments on a conference call with reporters on Monday.

One case in point is a law adopted by California lawmakers in 2014 that requires therapists to report patients who admit to having viewed or downloaded child pornography. The state Supreme Court is considering whether the mandate is constitutional. The question for Californians, though, is not whether the law is constitutional, but whether it’s wise.

The Philadelphia Court of Common Pleas, where a jury awarded an $8 billion verdict against Johnson & Johnson, took the No. 1 spot. That Oct. 8 verdict, plus a flood of other mass torts, prompted the ATRA, which publishes the 2019-2020 Judicial Hellholes report, to replace California with Philadelphia’s court as the worst venue in which to get sued.

(Subscription required) Back in 1972, in the case Friends of Mammoth Lakes v. Mono County, the Supreme Court entered the fray over the scope of the California Environmental Quality Act. Similar to the Dynamex court's rejection of a literal interpretation of "suffer or permit," the Mammoth Lakes court did not consider the absence of reference to private projects to be a limitation on CEQA's scope. The court said: "Once a particular legislative intent has been ascertained, it must be given effect even though it may not be consistent with the strict letter of the statute."

The Fall/Winter 2019 review — previously called the newsletter — of the California Supreme Court Historical Society is out now.

(Subscription required) The State Bar is working to prevent another premature leak of bar exam test topics but is also taking measures to give the agency more options for how to respond if a similar snafu occurs. Amy Nunez, the bar’s director of admissions, told the panel in 2020 the bar plans “to create additional exam questions to have a reserve bank on hand if this ever were to become necessary.”

(Subscription required) Lee is a man of many other hobbies and a former police officer from Southern California who’s wrapping up his 27th year as a judge in Santa Clara County. He oversees a felony arraignments and settlements calendar, and the jurist speaks modestly about how much his bench experience factors into trying to get parties on the same page.

The California Supreme Court will soon decide whether to revive a challenge to the law brought by therapists who treat people for sexual compulsions. Instead of helping children, the therapists argue, the new reporting requirement will discourage people from seeking help for porn addictions and other sexual proclivities.

The Yolo County Mental Health Court team has published its outcome measures for fiscal year 2018-19, showing significant reductions in arrests, jail bed days and hospital bed days of Mental Health Court participants.

(Subscription required) A public hearing date has been set to consider San Francisco County Superior Court Judge Teri L. Jackson's nomination to the 1st District Court of Appeal, the Judicial Branch of California announced Thursday.

To prepare for potential emergencies, the court collaborated with Cal State Fullerton to practice using the campus’s emergency operations center as a makeshift courtroom.

(Subscription required) When asked what finding justice in any individual case meant, Keen said it could mean enrolling a person with a drug addiction into a treatment program rather than sending them to state prison. He also spoke about recent changes to the law he said gave him more discretion when it comes to adding or declining to add enhancements.