COVID-19 emergency extension orders are presenting challenges for the Supreme Court in determining when to file, and also when to rule on, petitions for review. First, the complexity, then how the court is handling things, which can vary between criminal and civil cases.
The complexity
The window to file a PFR opens when a Court of Appeal decision becomes final as to that court and it closes 10 days later. (Rule 8.500(e)(1).) Pre-pandemic, identifying the filing period was relatively straightforward — for the most part, all you needed was a calendar and a careful reading of rule 8.264(b) & (c)(2), or rule 8.490(b) for original writ proceedings, which instruct whether a decision is final immediately, 30 days after filing, or after other times in clearly specified situations.
But then came the emergency orders that extended Court of Appeal decision finality times. Actually, the initial appellate court extension orders did not explicitly extend finality times, at least at first; that didn’t happen until second orders retroactively and expressly applied the first extension orders to finality times — oh, but not for decisions that were final immediately.
But things are even more complicated than that.
Each of the six Court of Appeal districts had its own orders that covered slightly different time periods. For example, the Second District orders extended times periods occurring between March 20 through April 19, while the First District covered times occurring between March 18 through April 17. So, if the First and Second Districts both filed opinions on February 18, the Second District opinion became final on March 19 (under un-extended rule 8.264(b)(1)), but the First District opinion, which otherwise would also have been final on March 19, didn’t become final until April 18. Because of the different finality times, a party could have filed a PFR in the Second District case on March 19, but a PFR in the First District case submitted on March 19 would have been premature.
Wait, that’s not entirely correct. The PFR in the First District case wasn’t premature on March 19, because, remember, the initial First District order didn’t expressly extend finality times; it didn’t specifically cover finality times until the First District’s second order, on April 9, retroactively made the first order applicable to finality times. The March 19 PFR only became premature, three weeks after it was submitted and filed.
And did we mention the third Court of Appeal orders? Those renewed the original extensions until May 18. But — and there’s always another “but” — the renewal orders provided that “finality shall not, under any circumstances, be extended by more than a total of 30 days.”
All of this, of course, doesn’t even take into account the Supreme Court’s own extension order, which extended by 30 days time periods occurring between March 20 and April 20. That doesn’t affect when a PFR could first be filed, but it does extend PFR filing deadlines. (By the way, although the Courts of Appeal all renewed their initial extension orders, the Supreme Court did not renew its order.)
What the Supreme Court is doing
How can the Supreme Court possibly manage with all these moving time frames? To tell us how the court is managing is Norm 
Vance, the director of the court’s criminal central staff.
Vance reports that the court “had to ‘unfile’ upward of 200 petitions that had been retroactively rendered premature” by the second Court of Appeal orders that applied the initial extension orders to decision finality times. He says that “many of these cases had already been processed and were ready” to be ruled on at a Wednesday conference, but the court had to wait until those retroactively premature petitions were refiled.
The court is now “very carefully trying to spread out when these” retroactively premature PFRs “go on conference,” Vance says, “in order to avoid a huge spike down the road when refiled petitions and newly filed petitions would otherwise end up on the same conference.” But, he goes on, “at the same time, we are trying to make sure that we do not deny any litigant the right to respond to a petition.” (Parties can answer a PFR up to 20 days after the PFR is filed (or refiled).) “It’s not an easy job,” Vance understates, “and it has required a lot of extra effort from our very diligent (and, frankly, amazing) deputy clerks as they work through these cases.”
Vance gives a look at the coming weeks: “you are likely to see a lot of petitions acted on in the near future within days of being ‘filed,’ because they have actually been in front of us for weeks. And it’s very possible that criminal cases and civil cases will end up on different tracks, since answers are rare in the former but not in the latter.”
Most of this is the court’s headache, however, not the parties’. If a party submits a PFR prematurely, the court will most probably hold the PFR and then file it when the PFR filing window opens. But court staff will also likely get the Court of Appeal record and start working up the (premature) PFR before it’s officially filed, so the prevailing party in the Court of Appeal might want to answer a premature PFR sooner rather than later.
Related:
Extension rules delay Supreme Court filing of petitions for review, whether counsel want it or not
Supreme Court might not renew its own extension order
Looks like there will be no statewide appellate time order
Supreme Court broadens its own extension order a bit
Judicial Council expands Chief Justice’s emergency power to extend appellate times
Chief Justice has now authorized extension orders for all six appellate districts
Supreme Court deadlines extended
Chief Justice authorizes two appellate districts to extend deadlines, but there are ambiguities