Yesterday’s Supreme Court conference was notable mostly for the absence of one particular ruling. There were no straight grants for the second week in a row. Here are some highlights:
Still no ruling on the anti-death-penalty writ petition.
PAGA grant-and-hold. Gonzalez v. Aluminum Precision Products is another grant-and-hold for Turrieta v. Lyft, Inc. The Supreme Court had limited the issue in Turrieta to, “Does a plaintiff in a representative action filed under the Private Attorneys General Act (Lab. Code, § 2698, et seq.) (PAGA) have the right to intervene, or object to, or move to vacate, a judgment in a related action that purports to settle the claims that plaintiff has brought on behalf of the State?” Today, it answered that question, “no.” (See here.) The Second District, Division Six, Court of Appeal’s published opinion in Gonzalez held a PAGA plaintiff does have standing to intervene, but then concluded the appellants in that case “did not meet the standards for mandatory and permissive intervention.”
Resentencing depublication. The court denied review in People v. Ellis, but it depublished the Second District, Division Six, two-page opinion that rejected a challenge to a resentencing order. The court found unavailing the defendant’s reliance on Senate Bill 567, 2021 legislation that precludes imposition of the highest of three possible sentencing terms unless the defendant has stipulated to, or a trier of fact has found, aggravating circumstances. In fact, in just one paragraph, Division Six stated eight different reasons for dismissing the SB 567 argument. It also said that “[a]ny claim of ineffective assistance of counsel should be addressed, if at all, in a petition for writ of habeas corpus.” The Supreme Court decided an SB 567 case today, People v. Lynch (opinion here; summary to follow). [Update: the Lynch summary is here.]
Dependency dissenting vote. Over the recorded dissenting vote of Justice Goodwin Liu, the court denied review in In re D.A., a Fourth District, Division Two, unpublished opinion affirming an order bypassing reunification services for a mother as to two of her children. Because Justice Liu’s vote is unexplained, it’s not clear why he voted for review. (There’s a fix for that.) Division Two decided various issues, including finding the trial court correctly both appointed a guardian ad litem to represent the mother’s interests because of her mental incompetence and applied the disentitlement doctrine because the mother had refused to submit to a court-ordered psychological evaluation. Justice Liu could have been interested in the guardian ad litem issue, the disentitlement doctrine issue, or both.
Good faith exception to the exclusionary rule dissenting vote. Justice Liu also dissented from the denial of review in People v. Pritchett. The First District, Division One, belatedly published opinion reversed the grant of an evidence suppression motion because it concluded that the searching police officer reasonably believed he was conducting a valid probation search, even if the defendant’s probation had actually expired under new legislation, Assembly Bill 1950.
Criminal case grant-and-holds. There were four criminal case grant-and-holds: one more waiting for decisions in two death penalty appeals — People v. Bankston and People v. Hin (see here), one more holding for People v. Emanuel (see here), one more waiting for In re Hernandez (see here), and one more on hold for People v. Superior Court (Guevara) (see here).