The Supreme Court has been known to hear as many as 17 cases on one calendar.  There have been considerably fewer arguments recently, however.  For the monthly calendars so far this term — September 2020 through February 2021 — the court has heard 4, 4, 5, 4, 6, and 5 cases.  For March, there will be only 3 cases on tap, the court announced today.

Like all arguments since April 2020 and for the foreseeable future, the March calendar will be remote and based in San Francisco (see here, here, and here), and it will be live streamed.

On March 2, the court will hear the following cases (with the issue presented as summarized by court staff or stated by the court itself):

In re Caden C.:  The court limited the issues, to: “(1) what standard governs appellate review of the beneficial parental relationship exception to adoption; and (2) whether a showing that a parent has made progress in addressing the issues that led to dependency is necessary to meet the beneficial parental relationship exception.”  The court granted review in July 2019.

People v. Lemcke:  Does instructing a jury with CALCRIM No. 315 that an eyewitness’s level of certainty can be considered when evaluating the reliability of the identification violate a defendant’s due process rights?  The court granted review in October 2018 as People v. Rudd.  (Should the case still be captioned People v. Rudd because the court granted Rudd’s petition for review and denied Lemcke’s?)

People v. Scully:  This is an automatic direct appeal from a June 1997 judgment of death.  The court’s website does not list issues for those cases.  Counsel was appointed in April 2002.  Briefing was completed in February 2015.  First District, Division Three, Court of Appeal Justice Justice Teri Jackson is a pro tem justice on the case.  Neither the docket nor the calendar disclose which permanent justice is recused, but it might be Justice Carol Corrigan.  Defense counsel advised the Supreme Court in 2012 that Justice Corrigan was one of three Court of Appeal justices who denied a 1996 writ petition the defendant filed to challenge the superior court’s rejection of a change of venue motion.

[February 11 update:  an amended calendar published today says that Justice Jackson will in fact be taking Justice Corrigan’s place on the People v. Scully appeal.]