Every once in a while, a petition for review comes really close to being granted, but can’t find a fourth vote.  (See here, here,and here.)  That happened again yesterday.

In People v. Superior Court (Tejeda), a 2-1 Court of Appeal grudgingly permitted the Orange County District Attorney to peremptorily disqualify a particular superior court judge.  The court ruled that way only because it felt itself bound to follow a 1977 Supreme Court decision, but it “question[ed] the wisdom” of the decision and “urge[d] the Supreme Court to revisit the issue of blanket papering.”  The Supreme Court almost took the advice.  It denied the petition for review, but Justices Kathryn Werdegar, Goodwin Liu, and Mariano-Florentino Cuéllar recorded votes to grant.