As reported, the Supreme Court at its Wednesday conference granted review on its own motion of a much-publicized Court of Appeal decision that found unconstitutional the setting of bail in an amount the defendant couldn’t pay.  But the court also granted review in a second bail case, In re White, in which a different Court of Appeal — the Fourth District, Division One — issued a published opinion upholding the denial of bail altogether for a noncapital offense.  Although granting review in White, the court denied the defendant’s request for immediate admission to bail.

Other conference actions of note include:

  • In over a dozen death penalty habeas corpus proceedings, the court rejected petitioners’ attempts to preclude transfers of the proceedings to lower courts, as is now permitted by Proposition 66.  (E.g., here.)  Apparently, this doesn’t mean that the court will transfer the cases, but it keeps open the court’s option to do so.  In previous cases, the court has transferred some habeas petitions but retained others.
  • The court made grant-and-hold orders in three criminal cases.