This opinion of the California Supreme Court -- in response to the Ninth Circuit's certified question -- is unanimous, and reading Justice Evans' opinion, you can potentially see why. She does a very good job of exploring the interplay between the various statutory provisions here, some of which were added by the Legislature and others of which were added by the electorate Proposition 139. Forthrightly, I'm not certain at all that the voters were, in fact, fully "aware" of the way the California treated various prisoners when it passed the underlying initiative (in fact, I'm extremely confiden ..read more

I'm fairly confident that this is all about pretext. But given that the Supreme Court is fine with allowing pretextual traffic stops, my sense is that the police officers here did an admirable job of keeping things calm and respectful. As, I might add, did the defendant. Here's how the traffic stop went down: "In July 2020, Officers Dorin Buchanan and Patrick Marshal pulled over Victor Ramirez after witnessing him speed in a residential neighborhood, fail to stop at a stop sign, and not use a turn signal. Before pulling Ramirez over, one of the officers recognized him as a gang member bas ..read more

I'm not exactly sure why Justice Wiley decided to publish this opinion, since it seems fairly clearly to make no new law and merely holds -- consistent with legions of precedent -- that in employment cases, in which you have to exhaust your administrative remedies first before you can sue, it's not okay to list one set of facts in your administrative petition and an entirely different set of facts in your subsequent lawsuit (e.g., claims for sex discrimination at one location in the administrative petition but claims of sexual harassment at a different location in the lawsuit). Can't do that ..read more

Two thoughts sprung to my mind when I read this opinion: (1) What an incredible waste of taxpayer money when a county (here, Santa Cruz County) sues a city (here, the City of Santa Cruz) over whether the city or county is responsible for a public road (here, Capitola Road) that allegedly got undermined by drainage pipes and needed to be repaired. It's a nine-count complaint (!) for $1.2 million in which the County is suing the City for (1) dangerous condition of public property, (2) trespass, (3) nuisance, (4) waste, (5) indemnity and contribution, (6) removal of lateral and “subadjacent” (sic ..read more

Judges Forrest and Thomas disagree on whether the law is "clearly established" that it's not okay for police officers to use continuous force (e.g., by kneeling on someone's back) to someone who's on the ground and handcuffed, particularly when (as here) he is telling the officer that he's unable to breathe. But can we all at least agree that there are a disturbing number of cases, both in the Ninth Circuit and elsewhere, involving that pretty much identical fact pattern? (FWIW, Judge Thomas' dissent quotes a prior Ninth Circuit opinion that says "The officers—indeed, any reasonable person—sh ..read more

That darn Westlaw. Always messing up circuit precedent by placing an unjustified red flag on cases that were not, in fact, overruled. So sayeth Judge Graber. (Fixing the problem here ..read more

Michael Lewis, age 37, has a lengthy rap sheet, and his latest offense was a first-degree murder conviction (he shot the victim half a dozen times at close range) in August 2022 for which he received a sentence of 75 years to life. During previous periods of incarceration, "Lewis had numerous rules violations, including for fighting, participating in a riot, failing to respond to notices, delaying a peace officer, disobeying orders, battery on a peace officer, and battery with a deadly weapon." Not someone you'd facially be likely to let out of prison anytime soon, right? But Mr. Lewis was als ..read more

Everything that Judge Callahan says and does here is exactly right. And -- full disclosure -- I say that even though I have a good friend who is the COO of the losing party. It's an appeal that's necessitated by a messed-up contemporary filing system in state court -- one that wasn't anticipated by the people who crafted the old-school removal rules during the pre-electronic filing era -- as applied to a common trick that sophisticated parties routinely employ to game the system in a way that Congress didn't anticipate when it, too, crafted the removal rules in a pre-electronic era. So it's b ..read more

Pretty much everyone -- including but not limited to Earl Warren to Stanley Mosk -- thought that California didn't allow one person to run for two different offices at the same election. But the Court of Appeal decides today that that's wrong; that one person can, indeed, run for multiple offices if s/he so decides. Potentially -- as perhaps likely here -- winning all of them. Justice Earl admits that this view of the statute might lead to absurd result, including but not limited to the following hypotheticals: "For example, a party candidate could run for every California congressional seat a ..read more

Since nothing in the federal or state constitutions expressly requires the governor of California to act on commutation petitions within a set timeframe, it's fairly clear that the governor can take as long as s/he wants on these petitions -- including, essentially, forever. But to the degree it was unclear before, today's Court of Appeal opinion expressly so holds. I did learn one thing today, however, that I didn't know previously. Apparently, the California Constitution says that the governor can only grant a pardon or commutation to someone "twice convicted of a felony except on recommenda ..read more