There wasn’t much of note at yesterday’s Supreme Court conference:  no straight grants and not even that many grant-and-holds.  Actions of interest included:

  • In People v. Maljanian, the court granted review and sent the case back to the Fourth District, Division Two, Court of Appeal, with directions to vacate its decision and reconsider in light of Penal Code section 1465.9.  The statute, which became operative just three weeks ago, makes “unenforceable and uncollectable” certain “court-imposed costs” and provides that “any portion of a judgment imposing those costs shall be vacated.”  The appellate court’s unpublished opinion, affirming a conviction for driving or taking a vehicle without the owner’s consent, was filed before the statute’s operative date and doesn’t mention court-imposed costs.
  • The court denied review in People v. Burton, an appeal with an unsuccessful claim that coercive police tactics were used to obtain a confession from the then-16-year-old defendant, but Justices Goodwin Liu and Mariano-Florentino Cuéllar recorded votes to grant.  In an unpublished opinion, the First District, Division Three, affirmed a murder/attempted-carjacking conviction, rejecting the argument that, as summarized by the appellate court, the defendant’s incriminating statements should have been excluded “as involuntary based on the totality of the circumstances, including his age, lack of law enforcement experience, learning disability and cognitive and mental limitations, as well as his early morning isolation in an interview room at a police station for one and a half hours without a telephone call before questioning and the interrogation techniques used by the police.”  (Related:  see here, here, and here.)
  • There were eight criminal case grant-and-holds:  one more holding for a decision in People v. Lewis (see here), which was argued in May; two more holding for Lewis and People v. Lopez (see here) (that’s a total of 314 Lewis grant-and holds); one more holding for People v. Duke (see here); one more holding for People v. Strong (see here); one more holding for People v. Delgadillo (see here); one more holding for In re Vaquera (see here); and one more holding for People v. Tirado (see here).