It was double Groundhog Day at the Supreme Court’s Wednesday conference this week, at least as far as one case is concerned.  The court granted review in People v. Orozco.  Why double?  First, Orozco is another Proposition 47 case, and the court seems to take a new one of those all the time.  Second, the court has granted review in this very case before.  It was a grant-and-hold case that was remanded to the Fourth District, Division One, Court of Appeal for reconsideration in light of the Supreme Court’s decision in People v. Page.  The Court of Appeal again affirmed the denial of the defendant’s resentencing petition, and now the Supreme Court will take another look.

Other notable actions include:

  • The court denied review in Monsanto Company v. Office of Environmental Health Hazard Assessment, but Justice Ming Chin recorded a vote to grant the petition.  In that case, the Fifth District held in a published opinion that, under Proposition 65, California could list an herbicide as a substance known to cause cancer based on a finding by a cancer agency of the World Health Organization that the herbicide was probably carcinogenic to humans.  [Disclosure:  Horvitz & Levy represents the plaintiff in the case.]
  • The court depublished the opinion of the Second District, Division One, in County of Los Angeles v. Los Angeles County Civil Service Commission.  The Court of Appeal there held that, without a court order, wiretap evidence could not be used in an administrative proceeding about whether a sheriff’s deputy should be fired.
  • After the Third District summarily denied a self-represented prisoner’s habeas corpus petition, the Supreme Court granted review in In re Fields and issued an order to show cause in superior court why the petitioner is not entitled to the relief requested regarding his claims under the Free Exercise Clause of the First Amendment to the United States Constitution, and the Religious Land Use and Institutionalized Persons Act.
  • The court denied review in People v. Espinoza, but Justices Goodwin Liu and Mariano-Florentino Cuéllar recorded votes to grant the petition.  The First District, Division One, there held in a published opinion that “a defendant who waives the right to appeal as part of a plea agreement must obtain a certificate of probable cause to appeal on any ground covered by the waiver, regardless of whether the claim arose before or after the entry of the plea.”
  • In In re Butler, a death penalty habeas corpus proceeding, the court issued an order to show cause in the superior court why relief shouldn’t be granted on juror misconduct grounds, and it denied the petition on all other grounds.
  • The court issued grant-and-hold orders in three criminal cases.
  • The court transferred one grant-and-hold criminal case back to the Court of Appeal.