The Chief Justice on remote arguments, issue percolation, rescue missions, and opinion length [Updated with photo]
At her meeting last week with the media, Chief Justice Patricia Guerrero answered questions about such things as immigration arrests in courthouses, the Los Angeles fires, artificial intelligence, and the judiciary’s budget. (See here.) But some of her answers included tidbits of interest to appellate practitioners.
Arguing remotely
In responding to an inquiry about remote work habits of the justices and court staff, the Chief Justice segued to the court’s post-pandemic policy of giving counsel the option of appearing for oral argument by video. (See here and here.) She called the policy a positive one, but she noted, “As an advocate, I probably would be in person if I could. I think it’s more effective.”
Since the pandemic, all seven justices are usually present in the courtroom for oral arguments, but there are exceptions. (E.g., here and here.)
When the court denies review of cases with review-worthy issues
Guerrero noted the most common reasons for granting review of case: when the Courts of Appeal are split on an issue or there’s an issue of statewide importance. (See rule 8.500(b)(1).) But, she added, the court doesn’t grant review in all cases fitting that description.
At the court’s regular conferences, Guerrero said the justices will “talk about [cases] that aren’t the correct vehicle” for deciding issues. “For a variety of reasons we may not accept that case, but we’ll deny but watch” and “keep tracking,” she explained. That’s why the court “might not automatically grant [review] the first time around.”
(Related: The Supreme Court doesn’t decide all important issues; Wait for it: issue percolation, right vehicles, and legislative inaction; see, e.g., here.)
Rescue missions

The Chief Justice repeated the axiom that the Supreme Court is “not a court of error correction.” “It’s not for us to second guess the work of the Court of Appeal or try to figure out what we would have done if we were them or the trial court,” she said. However, she did allow that the court will occasionally engage in “rescue missions,” that is a review grant that wouldn’t “fit within the normal requirements” and for reasons “outside of the rules” simply to “help somebody.” (Related: “Rescue missions”: the Supreme Court sometimes is an error-correction body; see also former Justice Edward Panelli’s oral history, which Guerrero mentioned, in 17 California Legal History (2022) 403, 561 [“to suggest that we wouldn’t do what we used to call a rescue mission every now [and then] wouldn’t be correct, because sometimes you saw the error was so egregious that you just felt you really can’t live with it. So you would grant a case that really didn’t meet the [rule] standards.”])
Although agreeing rescue missions exist, Guerrero was decidedly lukewarm personally on the concept. She said, “I don’t know that I like that term.” And she added, “I understand the sentiment and sometimes I agree with it, but in my mind there are all kinds of cases where we feel bad for the parties and we would want to rescue in some sense a lot of people and it doesn’t seem fair to sometimes pick one case to rescue.” But she also admitted, “I can’t say I’ve always been consistent; . . . there [are] good reasons for it in some cases.” (For possible rescue mission examples, see here and here.)
Opinion length
Guerrero stressed the importance of the press informing the public about individual court rulings. In that context, she commented that, although opinions are readily available to the public, “in some cases, they’re a little too long for the lay person to get through.” Some might say that some court opinions are too long, period.