Recently in Court News Category

In November 2011, the California Supreme Court decided that ProtectMarriage, the conservative coalition that sponsored Proposition 8, had standing to defend the ballot initiative in the federal appellate process.

The answer wasn’t obvious to the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals — which had certified the standing question to the state court — but Chief Justice Tani Cantil-Sakauye and the gang concluded that individual citizens have the right to defend ballot initiatives when public officials refuse to do so.

Maybe SCOTUS thinks the Supreme Court of California got it wrong. Maybe the Justices are just using standing as an excuse to avoid the greater issue of marriage equality. The only thing that is certain is that standing isn’t certain in the Hollingsworth v. Perry.

It’s somewhat ironic that the California Supreme Court heard oral arguments about the legality of city-wide medical marijuana dispensary (MMD) bans in San Francisco, of all places.

Tuesday, judges from the state’s highest court held a special outreach session at the University of San Francisco School of Law, within a mile of the city’s famous Haight-Ashbury neighborhood. The first case on the docket for the day: Riverside v. Inland Empire Patient’s Health and Wellness Center.

Say farewell to Pendergrass.

The California Supreme Court on Monday overruled the 78-year old limitation on the fraud exception to the parol evidence rule, finding that the ruling was "ill-considered."

California Chief Justice Tani Cantil-Sakauye wears many hats. In addition to her role as the state’s top jurist, she serves as Chair of the Judicial Council and Chair of the Commission on Judicial Appointments.

In the latter role, she announced this week that the Commission has confirmed three of Gov. Jerry Brown’s appointments to the California Court of Appeal.

So who are the newly-elevated judges? Judge Adrienne M. Grover, Judge Rosendo Peña, Jr., and James M. Humes.

Earlier this month, the California Supreme Court announced that the state's justices had unanimously adopted amendments to the California Code of Judicial Ethics based upon the recommendations of the court's Advisory Committee on the Code of Judicial Ethics.

The changes take effect January 1, 2013.

California Courts are still trying to cope with budget cuts. Under this year’s budget plan, the courts will be dipping into their reserves for $300 million that used to come from the state, and a separate $240-million cut will delay 38 construction projects, the Los Angeles Times reports.

When the money isn’t there, courthouses have to be consolidated. Consolidation not only imposes a burden on court staff, but on people appearing before the court. To address that problem, the Judicial Council and the Administrative Office of the Courts are developing a remote video trial pilot project.

How many opinions did the California Supreme Court release in the last year? How many death penalty appeals did the Court consider?

We have all the answers, thanks to the Court's Annual Report on Workload Statistics.

The California Supreme Court will hold a special outreach session of oral arguments at the UC Davis School of Law on Wednesday, October 3.

Oral arguments will begin in the new Kalmanovitz Appellate Courtroom in Martin Luther King, Jr. Hall at 10 a.m.

Friday, the Judicial Council of California voted unanimously to approve recommendations to reaffirm Judicial Council authority over the Administrative Office of the Courts (AOC), restructure the AOC, and endorse a plan for monthly monitoring of the implementation of the recommendations.

In May, the Strategic Evaluation Committee (SEC) recommended to the Judicial Council that that the AOC "must refocus on providing service to the courts; that a fundamental restructuring of the organization is needed; that the AOC must be down-sized to correspond with its core functions; and that its internal processes need to be improved."

We occasionally like to joke that a minor rule amendment changes everything.

All kidding aside, yesterday's California Supreme Court decision in Leung v. Verdugo Hills Hospital literally changes the face of tort law in the Golden State. The biggest news: The release rule is gone. Instead, the court has adopted the setoff-with-contribution approach.