In addition to an uncharacteristic rejection of a Ninth Circuit request to answer a question of state law, the Supreme Court’s actions of note at its Wednesday conference included:
- The court granted-and-held People v. Alexander. That happens all the time, particularly in criminal cases. The court also made a depublication order. That’s rare in a case in which review is granted. (See here, here, and here.) But what is really unusual, and perhaps unprecedented, is that the court depublished only the Court of Appeal dissenting opinion. The likely reason for the limited action is that the published dissent responds to a holding in an unpublished portion of the majority’s partially published opinion. The case is on hold for People v. Stamps, which concerns whether a certificate of probable cause is required for a defendant to challenge a negotiated sentence based on a subsequent ameliorative, retroactive change in the law.
- The court denied review in People v. Koback, but Justices Goodwin Liu and Joshua Groban recorded votes to grant. In the second of two 2-1 published opinions, which was filed after remand from the Supreme Court, the Fourth District, Division Two, held that the defendant’s swinging at someone with a car key protruding from between his knuckles supported a conviction for assault with a deadly weapon. (People v. Koback (2019) 36 Cal.App.5th 912.) The Supreme Court had remanded for reconsideration in light of its December 2018 decision in In re B.M., which held that a 17-year-old’s use of a butter knife towards her sister’s blanket-covered legs did not amount to an assault with a deadly weapon.
- The court transferred to the Courts of Appeal 37 former grant-and-holds, all but one for reconsideration in light of the Supreme Court’s August decision in In re Ricardo P., which limited requiring submission to warrantless searches of a defendant’s electronic devices as a condition of probation.
- There were three criminal case grant-and-transfers.