Why would the Supreme Court intentionally preserve, at least temporarily, a conflict in the case law?

One of the Supreme Court’s primary jobs is to step in when the state’s Courts of Appeal disagree with each other on a legal issue.  After all, the very first ground for Supreme Court review of a case is “to secure uniformity of decision.”

It was thus a bit surprising when the court yesterday unanimously denied a petition for review and a depublication request in People v. Aviles, where the Fifth District Court of Appeal’s published opinion declared another Court of Appeal’s opinion, also published, to have been “wrongly decided.”