Author: Curt Cutting

The court is hearing oral arguments this week and therefore isn’t holding its usual Wednesday case conference.

The conference list for this week’s conference included the anti-death-penalty writ petition but the conference report did not announce any ruling on that case. And there were no straight grants of review.

Criminal grant and holds. The were a five grant-and-hold orders in criminal cases: two for People v. Emanuel (see here), one for People v. Bankston and People v. Hin (see here), one for People v. Lopez (see here), and one for People v. Superior Court (Guevara) (see here).

Denial with dissenting votes. Justices Liu and Evans recorded dissenting votes from the denial of review in People v. Wong. In that case, the First Appellate District, Division One issued an published opinion rejecting the same argument that the Supreme Court itself rejected yesterday in People v. Williams.

Three Strikes sentencing. In In re Haynie the court ordered the Secretary of the Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation to appear before the Sacramento County Superior Court and show cause why the petitioner is not entitled to appointment of counsel in light of data provided by petitioner demonstrating racial disparities in sentencing under the Three Strikes law.

In People v. Williams, the Supreme Court held that Penal Code section 3051, subdivision (h), does not violate the Equal Protection Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment by excluding young adults convicted and sentenced for serious sex crimes under the One Strike law (Pen. Code, § 667.61) from youth offender parole consideration. The Supreme Court affirmed a decision by the Fourth District, Division One and disapproved two earlier decisions.

The majority opinion authored by Justice Jenkins explains that the Legislature had a rational basis to exclude One Strike offenders from early parole eligibility–while not excluding young adults convicted of murder—because of the risk of recidivism that One Strike offenders pose.

Justice Liu dissented, arguing that (1) the legislative history of the statute does not support the theory that the Legislature enacted due to concerns about recidivism, and (2) data shows that sex offenders recidivate at lower rates than non-sex offenders.

Tomorrow the Supreme Court will issue its long-awaited opinion in People v. Williams. The issue presented is: “Does Penal Code section 3051, subdivision (h), violate the equal protection clause of the Fourteenth Amendment by excluding young adults convicted and sentenced for serious sex crimes under the One Strike law (Pen. Code, § 667.61) from youth offender parole consideration, while young adults convicted of first degree murder are entitled to such consideration?”

The First District, Division Four issued a published opinion on this issue in 2019 and found an equal protection violation. (People v. Edwards (2019) 34 Cal.App.5th 183.) The Supreme Court did not grant review in that case, but granted review in Williams when the published part of an opinion by the Fourth District, Division One disagreed with Edwards.

The Supreme Court granted review in Williams in July 2020.

In In re Tellez, the Supreme Court held that trial courts must advise criminal defendants that they can be civilly committed to a state hospital at the completion of their prison term if they plead guilty or no contest to certain qualifying sex offenses.

The holding doesn’t help the defendant in this case, however, because he failed to demonstrate that he would not have accepted his plea deal if he had been advised by his counsel about the possibility of civil commitment.

Justice Liu filed a concurring opinion, joined by Justice Evans (who authored the majority opinion), expressing the view that defense counsel have a duty to advise their clients about the risk of civil commitment, and that failure to do so amounts to ineffective assistance of counsel.

Monday morning, the Supreme Court will file its opinion in In re Tellez. (Briefs here; oral argument video here.) The court will decide whether a criminal defendant’s counsel rendered ineffective assistance by failing to advise that a guilty plea could lead to a lifetime civil commitment as a sexually violent predator after service of a prison sentence. More about the case here and here.

In Rattagan v. Uber Technologies, Inc. the Supreme Court resolved a question certified by the Ninth Circuit involving the application of California’s economic loss rule.

The economic loss rule generally prohibits plaintiffs from recovering tort damages in cases involving breaches of contract that cause only economic losses. The Ninth Circuit asked the Supreme Court to decide the following question: “Under California law, are claims for fraudulent concealment exempted from the economic loss rule?”

The Supreme Court’s unanimous opinion discusses the evolution of California law on this issue and concludes that the question the Ninth Circuit should have asked is “Can a plaintiff assert an independent claim of fraudulent concealment in the performance of a contract?” The court then concluded that the the answer to the reframed question is a conditional yes. A plaintiff may assert a cause of action for fraudulent concealment based on conduct occurring in the course of a contractual relationship, but only if two conditions are met: (1) the elements of the claim can be established independently of the parties’ contractual rights and obligations and (2) the tortious conduct exposes the plaintiff to a risk of harm beyond the reasonable contemplation of the parties when they entered into the contract.

In City of Los Angeles v. Pricewaterhousecoopers, the Supreme Court today reinstated a $2.5 million discovery sanction against the City of Los Angeles, reversing an opinion by the Second Appellate District, Division Five, which held that the sanction exceeded the trial court’s authority.

This passage from the Supreme Court’s unanimous opinion succinctly summarizes the court’s holding that trial courts have broad discretion to impose sanctions for a wide variety of discovery misconduct:

Under the general sanctions provisions of the Civil Discovery Act, Code of Civil Procedure sections 2023.010 and 2023.030, the trial court had the authority to impose monetary sanctions for the City’s pattern of discovery abuse. The court was not limited to imposing sanctions for each individual violation of the rules governing depositions or other methods of discovery. We reverse the Court of Appeal’s judgment to the contrary.

The Supreme Court’s livefeed of yesterday’s oral arguments was disrupted by technical issues, so the Court has posted this “unprocessed” video of yesterday’s oral argument in Make UC a Good Neighbor v. The Regents of the University of California. (See here for a description of the case.)

Per the Supreme Court’s newsroom, videos from the other cases argued yesterday will be posted at a later date.

Opinions from yesterday’s arguments are expected by July 2.

We previously noted that the Supreme Court had not heard a death penalty appeal since February. That trend will come to an end next month, when the Supreme Court will hear arguments in People v. Helzer. Although the case is set for argument on November 8, the court issued a briefing schedule for supplemental briefs under which the supplemental respondent’s brief is due on November 8 and the petitioner’s supplemental reply brief is due November 22.

As usual, the oral arguments will be livestreamed.

The other cases on calendar are:

Estrada et al. v. Royalty Carpet Mills, Inc. The issue for review, per the Supreme Court’s website is: “Do trial courts have inherent authority to ensure that claims under the Private Attorneys General Act (Lab. Code, § 2698 et seq.) will be manageable at trial, and to strike or narrow such claims if they cannot be managed?”

Romero et al. v. Shih et al. Issue presented: “Did the trial court correctly find the existence of an implied easement under the facts?”

In re Vaquera. Issues presented: “(1) Did the Court of Appeal err by disagreeing with People v. Jimenez (2019) 35 Cal.App.5th 373 and endorsing as mandatory the sentencing practice prohibited in that case; (2) Is the Court of Appeal’s decision incorrect under People v. Mancebo (2002) 27 Cal.4th 735; (3) Did the Court of Appeal err by failing to address petitioner’s claims as to the issues of waiver and estoppel?”