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The Supreme Court of California is the highest and final court of appeals in the
courts A court is any person or institution, often as a government institution, with the authority to adjudicate legal disputes between parties and carry out the administration of justice in civil, criminal, and administrative matters in accorda ...
of the
U.S. state In the United States, a state is a constituent political entity, of which there are 50. Bound together in a political union, each state holds governmental jurisdiction over a separate and defined geographic territory where it shares its sove ...
of
California California is a state in the Western United States, located along the Pacific Coast. With nearly 39.2million residents across a total area of approximately , it is the most populous U.S. state and the 3rd largest by area. It is also the m ...
. It is headquartered in
San Francisco San Francisco (; Spanish for " Saint Francis"), officially the City and County of San Francisco, is the commercial, financial, and cultural center of Northern California. The city proper is the fourth most populous in California and 17t ...
at the Earl Warren Building, but it regularly holds sessions in
Los Angeles Los Angeles ( ; es, Los Ángeles, link=no , ), often referred to by its initials L.A., is the largest city in the state of California and the second most populous city in the United States after New York City, as well as one of the world ...
and
Sacramento ) , image_map = Sacramento County California Incorporated and Unincorporated areas Sacramento Highlighted.svg , mapsize = 250x200px , map_caption = Location within Sacramento ...
. Its decisions are binding on all other California state courts. Since 1850, the court has issued many influential decisions in a variety of areas including
tort A tort is a civil wrong that causes a claimant to suffer loss or harm, resulting in legal liability for the person who commits the tortious act. Tort law can be contrasted with criminal law, which deals with criminal wrongs that are punishable ...
s,
property Property is a system of rights that gives people legal control of valuable things, and also refers to the valuable things themselves. Depending on the nature of the property, an owner of property may have the right to consume, alter, share, r ...
, civil and
constitutional right A constitutional right can be a prerogative or a duty, a power or a restraint of power, recognized and established by a sovereign state or union of states. Constitutional rights may be expressly stipulated in a national constitution, or they may ...
s, and
criminal law Criminal law is the body of law that relates to crime. It prescribes conduct perceived as threatening, harmful, or otherwise endangering to the property, health, safety, and moral welfare of people inclusive of one's self. Most criminal law ...
.


Composition

Under the original 1849
California Constitution The Constitution of California ( es, Constitución de California) is the primary organizing law for the U.S. state of California, describing the duties, powers, structures and functions of the government of California. California's original c ...
, the Court started with a chief justice and two associate justices. The Court was expanded to five justices in 1862. Under the current 1879 constitution, the Court expanded to six associate justices and one chief justice, for the current total of seven. The justices are appointed by the
Governor of California The governor of California is the head of government of the U.S. state of California. The governor is the commander-in-chief of the California National Guard and the California State Guard. Established in the Constitution of California, t ...
and are subject to
retention election A judicial retention election (or retention referendum) is a periodic process in some jurisdictions whereby a judge is subject to a referendum held at the same time as a general election. The judge is removed from office if a majority of votes ar ...
s. According to the California Constitution, to be considered for appointment, as with any California judge, a person must be an attorney admitted to practice in California or have served as a judge of a California court for 10 years immediately preceding the appointment. To fill a vacant position, the Governor must first submit a candidate's name to the Commission on Judicial Nominees Evaluation of the State Bar of California, which prepares and returns a thorough, confidential evaluation of the candidate. Next, the Governor officially nominates the candidate, who must then be evaluated by the Commission on Judicial Appointments, which consists of the
Chief Justice of California The Supreme Court of California is the highest and final court of appeals in the courts of the U.S. state of California. It is headquartered in San Francisco at the Earl Warren Building, but it regularly holds sessions in Los Angeles and Sac ...
, the
Attorney General of California The attorney general of California is the state attorney general of the Government of California. The officer's duty is to ensure that "the laws of the state are uniformly and adequately enforced" ( Constitution of California, Article V, Secti ...
, and a senior presiding justice of the
California Courts of Appeal The California Courts of Appeal are the state intermediate appellate courts in the U.S. state of California. The state is geographically divided along county lines into six appellate districts.
. The Commission holds a public hearing and if satisfied with the nominee's qualifications, confirms the nomination. The nominee can then immediately fill an existing vacancy, or replace a departing justice at the beginning of the next judicial term. If a nominee is confirmed to fill a vacancy that arose partway through a judicial term, the justice must stand for retention during the next gubernatorial election. Voters then determine whether to retain the justice for the remainder of the judicial term. At the term's conclusion, justices must again undergo a statewide retention election for a full 12-year term. If a majority votes "no," the seat becomes vacant and may be filled by the Governor. The electorate has occasionally exercised the power not to retain justices. Chief Justice Rose Bird and Associate Justices
Cruz Reynoso Cruz Reynoso (May 2, 1931 – May 7, 2021) was an American civil rights lawyer and jurist. Reynoso was the first Chicano Associate Justice of the California Supreme Court, serving from 1982 to 1987. He also served on the California Third ...
and Joseph Grodin were staunchly opposed to
capital punishment Capital punishment, also known as the death penalty, is the state-sanctioned practice of deliberately killing a person as a punishment for an actual or supposed crime, usually following an authorized, rule-governed process to conclude that ...
and were subsequently removed in the 1986 general election. Newly reelected Governor
George Deukmejian Courken George Deukmejian Jr. (; June 6, 1928 – May 8, 2018) was an American politician who served as the 35th governor of California from 1983 to 1991. Of Armenian descent, Deukmejian was a member of the Republican Party and he also served ...
was then able to elevate Associate Justice Malcolm M. Lucas to Chief Justice and appoint three new associate justices (one to replace Lucas in his old post and two to replace Reynoso and Grodin).


Structure

Between 1879 and 1966, the court was divided by the state constitution into two three-justice panels, Department One and Department Two.See ''People v. Kelly''
40 Cal. 4th 106, 113
(2006), which explains the 1879 constitutional convention's decision to create a seven-justice court with two three-justice departments.
The chief justice divided cases evenly between the panels and also decided which cases would be heard "in bank" (
en banc In law, an en banc session (; French for "in bench"; also known as ''in banc'', ''in banco'' or ''in bank'') is a session in which a case is heard before all the judges of a court (before the entire bench) rather than by one judge or a smaller p ...
) by the Court sitting as a whole. During the late 1920s, the court gradually transitioned to routinely hearing all appeals in bank, apart from two unusual exceptions in 1941 when it again tried to sit in departments. The 1966 formal abolition of the department system merely confirmed how the court had been actually operating for quite some time. Oral argument was mandatory only for in bank hearings of appeals, which meant that many appeals were decided by three-justice departments on the briefs alone. However, the state constitution required department decisions to be unanimous to produce a final judgment. Any dissent automatically triggered an in bank hearing. After a constitutional amendment in 1966, the Court currently sits in bank (all seven together) when hearing all appeals. When there is an open seat on the court, or if a justice recuses himself or herself on a given case, justices from the
California Courts of Appeal The California Courts of Appeal are the state intermediate appellate courts in the U.S. state of California. The state is geographically divided along county lines into six appellate districts.
are assigned by the chief justice to join the court for individual cases on a rotational basis. The procedure for when all justices recuse themselves from a case has varied over time. For a 1992 case, the chief justice requested the presiding justice of a Court of Appeal district (different from the one where the case originated) to select six other Court of Appeal justices from his district, and they formed an acting Supreme Court for the purpose of deciding that one case. However, in a later case where all members of the Court recused themselves when Governor Schwarzenegger sought a writ of mandate (''Schwarzenegger v. Court of Appeal (Epstein)''), seven justices of the Courts of Appeal were selected based on the regular rotational basis, not from the same district, with the most senior one serving as the acting chief justice, and that acting supreme court eventually denied the writ petition. In a yet more recent case (''Mallano v. Chiang'') where all members of the Court recused themselves on a petition for review by retired Court of Appeal justices on a matter involving those justices' salaries (that apparently involved matters up to and including the 2016–2017 fiscal year), the Court ordered that six superior court judges be selected from the pool that took office after July 1, 2017, to serve as the substitute justices for the six sitting justices, with the senior judge among that group serving as the acting Chief Justice; that acting Supreme Court eventually denied the petition for review.


Membership

Five current justices were appointed by Democrats (Liu, Kruger, Groban, Jenkins, Guerrero) and two by Republicans (Cantil-Sakauye and Corrigan). The justices generally do not publicly discuss their political views or affiliations; however, in December 2018, Chief Justice Cantil-Sakauye announced that she was leaving the Republican Party. There is one
Filipino-American Filipino Americans ( fil, Mga Pilipinong Amerikano) are Americans of Filipino ancestry. Filipinos and other Asian ethnicities in North America were first documented in the 16th century as slaves and prisoners on ships sailing to and from New ...
justice (Cantil-Sakauye), two
African-American African Americans (also referred to as Black Americans and Afro-Americans) are an ethnic group consisting of Americans with partial or total ancestry from sub-Saharan Africa. The term "African American" generally denotes descendants of ensl ...
(Kruger, Jenkins), one East Asian-American justice (Liu), two
non-Hispanic white Non-Hispanic whites or Non-Latino whites are Americans who are classified as "white", and are not of Hispanic (also known as "Latino") heritage. The United States Census Bureau defines ''white'' to include European Americans, Middle Eastern Am ...
justices (Corrigan, Groban) and one Latina (Guerrero). Two justices earned an undergraduate degree from a
University of California The University of California (UC) is a public land-grant research university system in the U.S. state of California. The system is composed of the campuses at Berkeley, Davis, University of California, Irvine, Irvine, University of Califor ...
school (Cantil-Sakauye at
Davis Davis may refer to: Places Antarctica * Mount Davis (Antarctica) * Davis Island (Palmer Archipelago) * Davis Valley, Queen Elizabeth Land Canada * Davis, Saskatchewan, an unincorporated community * Davis Strait, between Nunavut and Gre ...
and Guerrero at Berkeley), four from private universities in California (Corrigan at Holy Names, Liu and Groban at
Stanford Stanford University, officially Leland Stanford Junior University, is a Private university, private research university in Stanford, California. The campus occupies , among the largest in the United States, and enrolls over 17,000 students. S ...
, and Jenkins at Santa Clara), and one from an out-of-state private university (Kruger at
Harvard Harvard University is a private Ivy League research university in Cambridge, Massachusetts. Founded in 1636 as Harvard College and named for its first benefactor, the Puritan clergyman John Harvard, it is the oldest institution of higher le ...
). Two justices earned their law degrees from a University of California law school (Cantil-Sakauye at
Davis Davis may refer to: Places Antarctica * Mount Davis (Antarctica) * Davis Island (Palmer Archipelago) * Davis Valley, Queen Elizabeth Land Canada * Davis, Saskatchewan, an unincorporated community * Davis Strait, between Nunavut and Gre ...
and Corrigan at
Hastings Hastings () is a large seaside town and borough in East Sussex on the south coast of England, east to the county town of Lewes and south east of London. The town gives its name to the Battle of Hastings, which took place to the north-west ...
), two from a private California university (Jenkins at the
University of San Francisco The University of San Francisco (USF) is a private Jesuit university in San Francisco, California. The university's main campus is located on a setting between the Golden Gate Bridge and Golden Gate Park. The main campus is nicknamed "The Hil ...
and Guerrero at
Stanford Stanford University, officially Leland Stanford Junior University, is a Private university, private research university in Stanford, California. The campus occupies , among the largest in the United States, and enrolls over 17,000 students. S ...
), and three from law schools at out-of-state private universities (Liu and Kruger at
Yale Yale University is a private research university in New Haven, Connecticut. Established in 1701 as the Collegiate School, it is the third-oldest institution of higher education in the United States and among the most prestigious in the wor ...
, and Groban at
Harvard Harvard University is a private Ivy League research university in Cambridge, Massachusetts. Founded in 1636 as Harvard College and named for its first benefactor, the Puritan clergyman John Harvard, it is the oldest institution of higher le ...
). The most recent addition to the court is Associate Justice Patricia Guerrero, who was sworn in on March 28, 2022, to replace Associate Justice
Mariano-Florentino Cuéllar Mariano-Florentino "Tino" Cuéllar (born July 27, 1972) is an American scholar, academic leader, public official, jurist, and nonprofit executive currently serving as the 10th president of the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace. A former ...
, who left the bench on October 31, 2021, to become President of the
Carnegie Endowment for International Peace The Carnegie Endowment for International Peace (CEIP) is a nonpartisan international affairs think tank headquartered in Washington D.C. with operations in Europe, South and East Asia, and the Middle East as well as the United States. Founded i ...
. Cuéllar was the only Hispanic justice on the court during his tenure; as a result, Hispanic community leaders encouraged Newsom to nominate another Latino justice to replace Cuéllar, and perhaps the first Latina justice as well. The court had a female majority from 2011 to 2017. The majority was achieved in 2011 after Republican Governor
Arnold Schwarzenegger Arnold Alois Schwarzenegger (born July 30, 1947) is an Austrian and American actor, film producer, businessman, retired professional bodybuilder and politician who served as the 38th governor of California between 2003 and 2011. ''Time'' ...
appointed Chief Justice
Tani Cantil-Sakauye Tani Gorre Cantil-Sakauye (née Cantil; born October 19, 1959) is an American lawyer and jurist who was the 28th Chief Justice of California and is the president/CEO of the Public Policy Institute of California. Nominated by Governor Arnold Schwa ...
to the court, joining Justice Joyce L. Kennard (an appointee of Republican Governor
George Deukmejian Courken George Deukmejian Jr. (; June 6, 1928 – May 8, 2018) was an American politician who served as the 35th governor of California from 1983 to 1991. Of Armenian descent, Deukmejian was a member of the Republican Party and he also served ...
), Justice
Kathryn Werdegar } Kathryn Jocelyn Mickle Werdegar (born April 5, 1936) is a former Associate Justice of the Supreme Court of California, serving from June 3, 1994, to August 31, 2017. Biography Werdegar earned her B.A. with honors at the University of California ...
(appointed by Republican Governor
Pete Wilson Peter Barton Wilson (born August 23, 1933) is an American attorney and politician who served as the 36th governor of California from 1991 to 1999. A member of the Republican Party, he also served as a United States senator from California betw ...
), and Justice Carol A. Corrigan (another Schwarzenegger appointee). When Kennard retired in 2014, Democratic Governor
Jerry Brown Edmund Gerald Brown Jr. (born April 7, 1938) is an American lawyer, author, and politician who served as the 34th and 39th governor of California from 1975 to 1983 and 2011 to 2019. A member of the Democratic Party, he was elected Secretary of S ...
preserved the female majority by appointing
Leondra Kruger Leondra Reid Kruger (born July 28, 1976) is an American judge who is an Associate Justice of the Supreme Court of California. A native of South Pasadena, California, she graduated from Harvard College and Yale Law School. Kruger then clerked fo ...
to succeed her. With Werdegar's retirement in 2017, the female majority ended, as Brown appointed Joshua Groban to succeed her. The female majority was restored in 2022, with the swearing in of Guerrero. In August 2022, Cantil-Sakauye announced that she would not seek a second term and would leave office once her term ends in January 2023. Newsom nominated Guerrero to serve as the next chief justice; he also nominated Alameda County Judge Kelli Evans to the seat that Guerrero would vacate.


Operation


Jurisdiction

The
Constitution of California The Constitution of California ( es, Constitución de California) is the primary organizing law for the U.S. state of California, describing the duties, powers, structures and functions of the government of California. California's original ...
gives the Court mandatory and exclusive appellate jurisdiction in all cases imposing
capital punishment in California In the U.S. state of California, capital punishment is a legal penalty. However it is not allowed to be carried out because executions were halted by an official moratorium ordered by Governor Gavin Newsom. Prior to the moratorium, executions ...
, although the Court has sponsored a state constitutional amendment to allow it to assign death penalty appeals to the California Courts of Appeal. The Court has discretionary appellate jurisdiction over all cases reviewed by the Courts of Appeal; the latter were created by a 1904 constitutional amendment to relieve the Supreme Court of most of its workload so the Court could then focus on dealing with non-frivolous appeals that involved important issues of law. According to research by Justice Goodwin Liu, each year the Court has averaged 5,200 petitions for writs of
certiorari In law, ''certiorari'' is a court process to seek judicial review of a decision of a lower court or government agency. ''Certiorari'' comes from the name of an English prerogative writ, issued by a superior court to direct that the record of ...
and 3,400 petitions for
habeas corpus ''Habeas corpus'' (; from Medieval Latin, ) is a recourse in law through which a person can report an unlawful detention or imprisonment to a court and request that the court order the custodian of the person, usually a prison official, ...
, plus 40 additional petitions from inmates already on death row. In an average year the Court will decide to hear 83 cases and will be required to hear appeals from 20 new inmates joining death row. Each week, the Court votes on 150 to 300 petitions, paying special attention to a staff-recommended "A list" as well as to certified questions from the
United States Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit The United States Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit (in case citations, 9th Cir.) is the U.S. federal court of appeals that has appellate jurisdiction over the U.S. district courts in the following federal judicial districts: * District ...
.


Internal procedure

The Court is open for business year-round (as opposed to operating only during scheduled "terms" as is commonplace in jurisdictions that observe the legal year). The Court hears oral argument at least one week per month, 10 months each year (except July and August). It has been headquartered in San Francisco since 1874. Since 1878, it has regularly heard oral argument each year at San Francisco (four months), Los Angeles (four months), and Sacramento (two months). According to Justice Liu, when a case is granted review, the Chief Justice assigns the case to a justice, who, after the parties finish briefing, then prepares a draft opinion. Each justice writes a preliminary response to the draft opinion, and if the assigned justice is in the minority, she may ask the Chief Justice to reassign the case to someone in the majority. The Court then hears oral arguments and, immediately afterwards, meet alone to vote. The California Constitution requires suspension of the justices' salaries if the Court fails to then file a decision within 90 days. The Court issues unanimous opinions in 77% of cases, compared to 43% by the
Supreme Court of the United States The Supreme Court of the United States (SCOTUS) is the highest court in the federal judiciary of the United States. It has ultimate appellate jurisdiction over all U.S. Federal tribunals in the United States, federal court cases, and over Stat ...
. Throughout the year (including July and August), the justices have a conference every Wednesday the Court is not hearing oral argument, with the exception of the last week, respectively, of November and December (Thanksgiving and New Year's). New opinions are published online on Monday and Thursday mornings at 10 a.m. Paper copies also become available through the clerk's office at that time. The Court is one of the few U.S. courts apart from the U.S. Supreme Court that enjoys the privilege of having its opinions routinely published in three hardcover reporters. The Court's Reporter of Decisions contracts with a private publisher (currently
LexisNexis LexisNexis is a part of the RELX corporation that sells data analytics products and various databases that are accessed through online portals, including portals for computer-assisted legal research (CALR), newspaper search, and consumer info ...
) to publish the official reporter, ''California Reports'', now in its fifth series; note that the series number changes whenever the publisher changes, although the most recent changeover to the fifth series did not involve a change in reporter.
West West or Occident is one of the four cardinal directions or points of the compass. It is the opposite direction from east and is the direction in which the Sun sets on the Earth. Etymology The word "west" is a Germanic word passed into some ...
publishes California decisions in both the ''California Reporter'' (in its second series) and the ''
Pacific Reporter The ''Pacific Reporter'', ''Pacific Reporter Second'', and ''Pacific Reporter Third'' () are United States regional case law reporters. It is part of the National Reporter System created by John B. West for West Publishing Company, which is now par ...
'' (in its third series). (The
New York Court of Appeals The New York Court of Appeals is the highest court in the Unified Court System of the State of New York. The Court of Appeals consists of seven judges: the Chief Judge and six Associate Judges who are appointed by the Governor and confirmed by ...
opinions are similarly published in three reporters.) Each justice has five assigned chambers attorneys. Since the late 1980s, the Court has turned away from the traditional use of
law clerk A law clerk or a judicial clerk is a person, generally someone who provides direct counsel and assistance to a lawyer or judge by researching issues and drafting legal opinions for cases before the court. Judicial clerks often play significant ...
s, and has switched to permanent staff attorneys. Justices Goodwin Liu and Leondra Kruger, however, have returned to the traditional use of recent law school graduates as one-year clerks for some of their staff positions. The Court has about 85 staff attorneys, some of whom are attached to particular justices; the rest are shared as a central staff. The advantage to this system is that the reduced turnover of staff attorneys (versus the traditional system of rotating through new law clerks every year) has improved the efficiency of the court in dealing with complex cases, particularly death penalty cases. During its first half-century of operation, the Court struggled to keep up with its soaring caseload and very frequently fell behind, until the California Courts of Appeal were created in 1904. This resulted in provisions in the 1879 Constitution requiring the Court to decide all cases in writing with reasons given (to get rid of minor cases, it had often given summary dispositions with ''no'' reasons given) and requiring California judges to certify in writing every month that no matter submitted for consideration had been outstanding for more than 90 days, or else they will not be paid. To comply with the latter provision, the Court does not schedule oral argument until the justices and their staff attorneys have already studied the briefs, formulated their respective positions, and circulated draft opinions. Then, after the matter is formally "argued and submitted" before the Court, the justices can polish and file their opinions well before reaching the 90-day deadline. This differs sharply from the practice in all other federal and state appellate courts, where judges can schedule oral argument not long after written briefing is finished, but then may take many months (or even a year) after oral argument to file their opinions.


Historical procedure

In March 1885, the state legislature authorized the creation of the Supreme Court Commission to help with the Court's overwhelming backlog of pending appeals. The justices were initially allowed to hire three commissioners. Since oral argument was not mandatory except for in bank hearings of appeals, the justices began to assign cases to the commissioners which could likely be resolved on the briefs alone. The number of commissioners was expanded in five in 1889. In retrospect, the commissioners can be seen as an important precursor of the law clerks and staff attorneys which the Court began to hire in the 1930s. In contrast to modern practice, where appellate justices are expected to take ownership of the opinions to which they sign their names and staff members are mere
ghostwriter A ghostwriter is hired to write literary or journalistic works, speeches, or other texts that are officially credited to another person as the author. Celebrities, executives, participants in timely news stories, and political leaders often ...
s, the commissioners openly signed their opinions. Each of the approximately 4,400 appeals (3,700 reported, 700 unreported) handled by the commissioners was resolved by an opinion signed by one commissioner with the concurrence of two others. The opinions always ended in a recommended disposition, such as: "We find no error in the record and the judgment should be affirmed." Originally, this was followed by a one-line unsigned per curiam statement in the name of "The Court," such as: "For the reasons given in the foregoing opinion the judgment is affirmed." Starting in 1892, the three justices who reviewed and summarily adopted each commissioners' opinion began to also sign their names. The commissioners were only partially successful in reducing the chronic backlog. The Commission was also subject to heavy criticism as an unelected "auxiliary court". Attorneys who enjoyed appellate work but had difficulty holding onto judicial seats in partisan elections repeatedly bounced back and forth between serving as elected justices and unelected commissioners. After two more decades of debate, the state legislature recognized that the state needed to establish intermediate appellate courts and referred the issue to the electorate. In November 1904, Senate Constitutional Amendment No. 2 was approved by the state's voters, which abolished the Supreme Court Commission and created the California Courts of Appeal. All five commissioners were promptly appointed in 1905 to serve among the original nine justices of the Courts of Appeal.


Publication of opinions

Except for one decade at its founding, the Court has never been required by constitutional or statutory law to publish all its opinions. The Court currently chooses to publish all opinions as a matter of public policy, as disclosed in rule 8.1105(a) of the California Rules of Court. The original California Constitution of 1849 authorized the Court to publish all opinions that it "may deem expedient," and the current California Constitution of 1879 authorizes the Court to publish all opinions that it "deems appropriate." In 1850, a statute was enacted directing the Supreme Court to publish opinions in all cases, but in 1855, the Court began to direct that some opinions should not be reported, and this procedure was retroactively approved by the legislature in an 1860 statute. Over 1,800 unreported opinions were filed by the Court over the next 25 years (which includes the 700 unreported opinions filed by the commissioners). The ''
Pacific Reporter The ''Pacific Reporter'', ''Pacific Reporter Second'', and ''Pacific Reporter Third'' () are United States regional case law reporters. It is part of the National Reporter System created by John B. West for West Publishing Company, which is now par ...
'' started to collect and publish the Court's unreported opinions at its launch in 1883, and then the Court gave in and switched back to publication of all opinions. A small group of lawyers later recovered and compiled all the unreported opinions filed by the Supreme Court and the Supreme Court Commission before that point, which were published in a separate seven-volume reporter called ''California Unreported Cases'' starting in 1913. Despite its name, those cases are citable as precedent.


Ancillary responsibilities

The Court supervises the lower courts (including the trial-level California superior courts) through the
Judicial Council of California The Judicial Council of California is the rule-making arm of the California court system. In accordance with the California Constitution and under the leadership of the Chief Justice of the Supreme Court of California, the council is responsible f ...
and the California Commission on Judicial Performance, and also supervises California's legal profession through the
State Bar of California The State Bar of California is California's official attorney licensing agency. It is responsible for managing the admission of lawyers to the practice of law, investigating complaints of professional misconduct, prescribing appropriate disciplin ...
. All lawyer admissions are done through recommendations of the State Bar, which then must be ratified by the Supreme Court, and attorney discipline is delegated to the
State Bar Court of California The State Bar Court of California serves as the administrative arm of the California Supreme Court in the adjudication of disciplinary and regulatory matters involving California attorneys. Although it is not formally a court of record, its judges ...
(although suspensions longer than three years must be independently decided upon by the Court). California's bar is the largest in the U.S. with 210,000 members, of whom 160,000 are practicing. The court, with the assistance of the Reporter of Decisions, publishes the
California Style Manual The ''California Style Manual'', as provided by order of the California Supreme Court and pursuant to statute, is "the official organ for the styles to be used in the publication of the Official Reports" of decisions by California's courts. A pers ...
for use by the
California Courts of Appeal The California Courts of Appeal are the state intermediate appellate courts in the U.S. state of California. The state is geographically divided along county lines into six appellate districts.
and the superior courts.


Reputation

As the ''
Wall Street Journal ''The Wall Street Journal'' is an American business-focused, international daily newspaper based in New York City, with international editions also available in Chinese and Japanese. The ''Journal'', along with its Asian editions, is published ...
'' said in 1972:
The state's high court over the past 20 years has won a reputation as perhaps the most innovative of the state judiciaries, setting precedents in areas of criminal justice, civil liberties, racial integration, and consumer protection that heavily influence other states and the federal bench.
Statistical analyses conducted by
LexisNexis LexisNexis is a part of the RELX corporation that sells data analytics products and various databases that are accessed through online portals, including portals for computer-assisted legal research (CALR), newspaper search, and consumer info ...
personnel at the Court's request indicate that the decisions of the Supreme Court of California are by far the most followed of any state supreme court in the United States.Jake Dear and Edward W. Jessen, ''" Followed Rates" and Leading State Cases, 1940–2005'', 41 U.C. Davis L. Rev. 683, 694
(2007).
Between 1940 and 2005, 1,260 decisions of the Court were expressly followed by out-of-state courts (meaning that those courts expressly found the Court's reasoning persuasive and applied it to the cases before them). Many important legal concepts have been pioneered or developed by the Court, including
strict liability In criminal and civil law, strict liability is a standard of liability under which a person is legally responsible for the consequences flowing from an activity even in the absence of fault or criminal intent on the part of the defendant. ...
for defective products, fair procedure, negligent infliction of emotional distress, palimony, insurance bad faith,
wrongful life Wrongful life is the name given to a cause of action in which someone is sued by a severely disabled child (through the child's legal guardian) for failing to prevent the child's birth. Typically, a child and the child's parents will sue a doctor ...
, and market-share liability. The major film studios in and around
Hollywood Hollywood usually refers to: * Hollywood, Los Angeles, a neighborhood in California * Hollywood, a metonym for the cinema of the United States Hollywood may also refer to: Places United States * Hollywood District (disambiguation) * Hollywoo ...
and the high-tech firms of
Silicon Valley Silicon Valley is a region in Northern California that serves as a global center for high technology and innovation. Located in the southern part of the San Francisco Bay Area, it corresponds roughly to the geographical areas San Mateo Cou ...
both fall under the Court's jurisdiction. Thus, the Court has decided a number of cases by, between, and against such companies, as well as several cases involving Hollywood celebrities and high-tech executives. The California Supreme Court and all lower California state courts use a different writing style and
citation A citation is a reference to a source. More precisely, a citation is an abbreviated alphanumeric expression embedded in the body of an intellectual work that denotes an entry in the bibliographic references section of the work for the purpose o ...
system from the federal courts and many other state courts. California citations have the year between the names of the parties and the reference to the case reporter, as opposed to the national standard (the
Bluebook ''The Bluebook: A Uniform System of Citation'' is a style guide that prescribes the most widely used legal citation system in the United States. It is taught and used at a majority of U.S. law schools and is also used in a majority of federal ...
) of putting the year at the end. For example, the famous case '' Marvin v. Marvin'', which established the standard for non-marital partners' ability to sue for their contributions to the partnership, is rendered ''Marvin v. Marvin'' (1976) 18 Cal.3d 660 34 Cal.Rptr. 815, 557 P.2d 106in California style, while it would be ''Marvin v. Marvin'', 18 Cal. 3d 660, 557 P.2d 106, 134 Cal. Rptr. 815 (1976), in Bluebook style. The California citation style, however, has always been the norm of common law jurisdictions outside the United States, including England, Canada and Australia. While the U.S. Supreme Court justices indicate the author of an opinion and who has "joined" the opinion at the start of the opinion, California justices always sign a majority opinion at the end, followed by "WE CONCUR," and then the names of the joining justices. California judges are traditionally not supposed to use certain ungrammatical terms in their opinions, which has led to embarrassing fights between judges and the editor of the state's official reporters. California has traditionally avoided the use of certain French and Latin phrases like ''
en banc In law, an en banc session (; French for "in bench"; also known as ''in banc'', ''in banco'' or ''in bank'') is a session in which a case is heard before all the judges of a court (before the entire bench) rather than by one judge or a smaller p ...
'', ''
certiorari In law, ''certiorari'' is a court process to seek judicial review of a decision of a lower court or government agency. ''Certiorari'' comes from the name of an English prerogative writ, issued by a superior court to direct that the record of ...
'', and ''
mandamus (; ) is a judicial remedy in the form of an order from a court to any government, subordinate court, corporation, or public authority, to do (or forbear from doing) some specific act which that body is obliged under law to do (or refrain fr ...
'', so California judges and attorneys use "in bank," "review," and "mandate" instead (though "in bank" has become quite rare after 1974). Finally, the Court has the power to "depublish" opinions by the Courts of Appeal (as opposed to the federal practice of ''not'' publishing certain "unpublished" opinions at all in the federal case reporters). This means that even though the opinion has already been published in the official state reporters, it will be binding only upon the parties.
Stare decisis A precedent is a principle or rule established in a previous legal case that is either binding on or persuasive for a court or other tribunal when deciding subsequent cases with similar issues or facts. Common-law legal systems place great va ...
does not apply, and any new rules articulated will not be applied in future cases. Similarly, the California Supreme Court has the power to "publish" opinions by the California Courts of Appeal which were initially not published.


Important cases

The California Supreme Court has handed down important and influential decisions since 1850. Some of the most significant of these important and influential Court decisions are listed below in date ascending order. Most of the Court decisions that follow were landmark decisions that were among the first such decisions in the United States or the world. * ''
People v. Hall ''The People of the State of California v. George W. Hall'' or ''People v. Hall'', , was an appealed murder case in the 1850s, in which the California Supreme Court established that Chinese Americans and Chinese immigrants had no rights to testi ...
'' (1854): A case which held that Chinese persons may not testify against a white man, even if the white man is accused of murdering a Chinese person; effectively overturned by state law in 1873. The ''Hall'' case has been described as “containing some of the most offensive racial rhetoric to be found in the annals of California appellate jurisprudence” and “the worst statutory interpretation case in history.” * ''Houston v. Williams'' (1859): A leading case on the
separation of powers Separation of powers refers to the division of a state's government into branches, each with separate, independent powers and responsibilities, so that the powers of one branch are not in conflict with those of the other branches. The typi ...
under the California Constitution. * '' Escola v. Coca-Cola Bottling Co.'' (1944): Then-Associate Justice Roger Traynor suggested in a now-famous concurring opinion that the Court should dispose of
legal fiction A legal fiction is a fact assumed or created by courts, which is then used in order to help reach a decision or to apply a legal rule. The concept is used almost exclusively in common law jurisdictions, particularly in England and Wales. Deve ...
s like warranties and impose
strict liability In criminal and civil law, strict liability is a standard of liability under which a person is legally responsible for the consequences flowing from an activity even in the absence of fault or criminal intent on the part of the defendant. ...
for defective products as a matter of public policy. * '' Perez v. Sharp'' (1948): The Court overturned the statutory ban on
interracial marriage Interracial marriage is a marriage involving spouses who belong to different races or racialized ethnicities. In the past, such marriages were outlawed in the United States, Nazi Germany and apartheid-era South Africa as miscegenation. In 1 ...
as unconstitutional. ''Perez'' directly influenced the landmark U.S. Supreme Court decision on this issue, '' Loving v. Virginia'' (1967). * ''
Summers v. Tice ''Summers v. Tice''(1948), is a seminal California Supreme Court tort law decision relating to the issue of liability where a plaintiff cannot identify with specificity which among multiple defendants caused his harm. The case established the d ...
'' (1948): The Court shifted the burden to the defense to disprove causation when it was clear that one of two defendants must have caused the plaintiff's injury, but it was not clear which one. * '' Dillon v. Legg'' (1968): The Court radically expanded the tort of negligent infliction of emotional distress (NIED) beyond its traditional form, which historically had been limited to plaintiffs standing in the same "zone of danger" as a relative who was killed. * '' Pacific Gas & E. Co. v. G.W. Drayage & Rigging Co., Inc.'' (1968): The Court held that parol evidence could be conditionally received by a trial court to determine if a contract was ambiguous when not ambiguous on its face. This decision has not been followed by the courts of any other state. * ''
Rowland v. Christian ''Rowland v. Christian'', (1968), was a case decided by the Supreme Court of California. It eliminated the categories of invitee, licensee, and trespasser to determine the duty of care owed by a possessor of land to the people on the land. It rep ...
'' (1968): The Court abolished the old distinctions between different types of persons entering land and imposed a general
duty of care In tort law, a duty of care is a legal obligation that is imposed on an individual, requiring adherence to a standard of reasonable care while performing any acts that could foreseeably harm others. It is the first element that must be establi ...
in the context of the tort of
negligence Negligence (Lat. ''negligentia'') is a failure to exercise appropriate and/or ethical ruled care expected to be exercised amongst specified circumstances. The area of tort law known as ''negligence'' involves harm caused by failing to act as ...
. * ''
People v. Belous A person (plural, : people) is a being that has certain capacities or attributes such as reason, morality, consciousness or self-consciousness, and being a part of a culturally established form of social relations such as kinship, ownership of pr ...
'' (1969): The Court held the state's criminal statute prohibiting abortions to be unconstitutionally vague, in a 4-3 decision. * '' People v. Anderson'' (1972): The Court relied upon the state constitutional clause prohibiting "cruel or unusual punishment" (note the difference from the federal Constitution's "cruel and unusual punishment" clause) to abolish capital punishment in California. The state electorate promptly overruled ''Anderson'' that same year with a
popular initiative In political science, an initiative (also known as a popular initiative or citizens' initiative) is a means by which a petition signed by a certain number of registered voters can force a government to choose either to enact a law or hold a p ...
, Proposition 17, that kept the "cruel or unusual" clause but declared the death penalty to be neither cruel nor unusual. * '' Pitchess v. Superior Court'' (1974): The Court held that criminal defendants have a right to access the arresting officer's personnel file when the defendant alleges in an affidavit that the officer used excessive force or lied about the circumstances of the arrest. * ''
Li v. Yellow Cab Co. ''Li v. Yellow Cab Co.'', 13 Cal.3d 804, 532 P.2d 1226 (1975), commonly referred to simply as ''Li'', is a California Supreme Court case that judicially embraced comparative negligence in California tort law and rejected strict contributory negl ...
'' (1975): The Court embraced
comparative negligence Comparative negligence, called non-absolute contributory negligence outside the United States, is a partial legal defense that reduces the amount of damages that a plaintiff can recover in a negligence-based claim, based upon the degree to which t ...
as part of California tort law and rejected strict
contributory negligence In some common law jurisdictions, contributory negligence is a defense to a tort claim based on negligence. If it is available, the defense completely bars plaintiffs from any recovery if they contribute to their own injury through their own negl ...
. * ''
Tarasoff v. Regents of the University of California ''Tarasoff v. Regents of the University of California'', 17 Cal. 3d 425, 551 P.2d 334, 131 Cal. Rptr. 14 ( Cal. 1976), was a case in which the Supreme Court of California held that mental health professionals have a duty to protect individu ...
'' (1976): The Court held that mental health professionals have a duty to protect individuals who are being threatened with bodily harm by a patient. The original 1974 decision mandated warning the threatened individual, but a 1976 rehearing resulted in a decision calling for a "duty to protect" the intended victim, which did not necessarily require that a potential victim be informed of the threat. * '' Marvin v. Marvin'' (1976): The Court ruled in favor of the enforceability of non-marital relationship contracts, express or implied, to the extent that they are ''not'' founded purely upon meretricious sexual services. In other words, even though California does not recognize common law marriage, persons who cohabit for long periods of time and commingle their assets are allowed to plead and prove marriage-like contracts for support and division of property. * '' Robins v. Pruneyard Shopping Center'' (1979): The Court found that the broad right to freedom of speech in the state constitution included an implied right to freedom of speech in ''private'' shopping centers. The U.S. Supreme Court in turn held that the state supreme court's decision did not amount to a "taking" of the shopping center under federal constitutional law. * '' Sindell v. Abbott Laboratories'' (1980): The Court imposed market share liability on the makers of fungible hazardous products. * '' Thing v. La Chusa'' (1989): The Court withdrew from the expansive form of NIED set forth in ''Dillon'' and imposed a rigid bright-line test for recovery in bystander NIED cases. The ''Thing'' decision included extensive '' dicta'' hostile to plaintiffs which more generally limited the scope of recovery for both the tort of
negligence Negligence (Lat. ''negligentia'') is a failure to exercise appropriate and/or ethical ruled care expected to be exercised amongst specified circumstances. The area of tort law known as ''negligence'' involves harm caused by failing to act as ...
and
emotional distress In medicine, distress is an aversive state in which a person is unable to completely adapt to stressors and their resulting stress and shows maladaptive behaviors. It can be evident in the presence of various phenomena, such as inappropriate so ...
damages in California. * ''
Moore v. Regents of the University of California ''Moore v. Regents of the University of California'' was a landmark Supreme Court of California decision. Filed on July 9, 1990, it dealt with the issue of property rights to one's own cells taken in samples by doctors or researchers. In 1976, Jo ...
'' (1990): The Court held that patients do not have intellectual property rights in profits from medical discoveries made with their body parts. * '' Wendland v. Wendland'' (2001): The Court held that in the absence of a legally recognized method of determining who should make medical decisions on the behalf of an incompetent patient, the constitutional
right to life The right to life is the belief that a being has the right to live and, in particular, should not be killed by another entity. The concept of a right to life arises in debates on issues including capital punishment, with some people seeing it a ...
and
right to privacy The right to privacy is an element of various legal traditions that intends to restrain governmental and private actions that threaten the privacy of individuals. Over 150 national constitutions mention the right to privacy. On 10 December 194 ...
granted special protection to the incompetent person. * '' Yount v. City of Sacramento'' (2008): The Court held that a
criminal conviction In law, a conviction is the verdict reached by a court of law finding a defendant Guilty (law), guilty of a crime. The opposite of a conviction is an acquittal (that is, "not guilty"). In Scotland, there can also be a verdict of "not proven", w ...
does not limit an individual's right to bring civil action for deprivation of rights in cases of excessive use of force. * ''
In re Marriage Cases ''In re Marriage Cases'', 43 Cal. 4th 757 (Cal. 2008) was a California Supreme Court case where the court held that laws treating classes of persons differently based on sexual orientation should be subject to strict judicial scrutiny, and that ...
'' (2008): The Court held that
sexual orientation Sexual orientation is an enduring pattern of romantic or sexual attraction (or a combination of these) to persons of the opposite sex or gender, the same sex or gender, or to both sexes or more than one gender. These attractions are generall ...
is a protected class which requires
strict scrutiny In U.S. constitutional law, when a law infringes upon a fundamental constitutional right, the court may apply the strict scrutiny standard. Strict scrutiny holds the challenged law as presumptively invalid unless the government can demonstrate th ...
and under such scrutiny, laws prohibiting same-sex marriage are unconstitutional under the state constitution. The state electorate overturned the marriage portion of the decision that same year by enacting a popular initiative,
Proposition 8 Proposition 8, known informally as Prop 8, was a California ballot proposition and a state constitutional amendment intended to ban same-sex marriage; it passed in the November 2008 California state elections and was later overturned in cou ...
, but left in place the discrimination protections. * '' Silicon Valley Taxpayers' Assn., Inc. v. Santa Clara County Open Space Authority'' (2008): The Court unanimously held in a Proposition 218 ("Right to Vote on Taxes Act") case that courts must exercise their independent judgment in reviewing local agency legislative decisions adopting special assessments. The highly deferential standard of review before Proposition 218 became law was grounded in
separation of powers Separation of powers refers to the division of a state's government into branches, each with separate, independent powers and responsibilities, so that the powers of one branch are not in conflict with those of the other branches. The typi ...
. Because the constitutional provisions of Proposition 218 were of equal dignity to the
separation of powers Separation of powers refers to the division of a state's government into branches, each with separate, independent powers and responsibilities, so that the powers of one branch are not in conflict with those of the other branches. The typi ...
doctrine, it no longer justified allowing a local agency to usurp the judicial function of interpreting and applying the constitutional provisions that governed assessments under Proposition 218. * '' People v. Diaz'' (2011):51 Cal. 4th 84, 244 P.3d 501, 119 Cal. Rptr. 3d 105 (2011). The Court held that the warrantless search of information in a cell phone was valid when incident to a lawful arrest. (The holding in ''Diaz'' was eventually repudiated by the United States Supreme Court in ''
Riley v. California ''Riley v. California'', 573 U.S. 373 (2014),''Riley v. California''573 U.S. 373(2014). is a landmark United States Supreme Court case in which the court ruled that the warrantless search and seizure of the digital contents of a cell phone during ...
''.)


Notable former justices

*
Serranus Clinton Hastings Serranus Clinton Hastings (November 22, 1814 – February 18, 1893) was an American politician, rancher and lawyer in California. He studied law as a young man and moved to the Iowa District in 1837 to open a law office. Iowa became a territory ...
, Chief Justice (1850–1852) (First Chief Justice, founded
Hastings College of the Law The University of California, Hastings College of the Law (UC Hastings) is a public law school in San Francisco, California. Founded in 1878 by Serranus Clinton Hastings, UC Hastings was the first law school of the University of California a ...
) *
Solomon Heydenfeldt Solomon Heydenfeldt (1816 – September 15, 1890) was an American attorney who was an associate justice of the California Supreme Court from 1852 to 1857. He was the second Jewish justice of the court, after Henry A. Lyons, but was the first e ...
, Associate Justice (1852–1857) (First Jewish justice to be elected by direct vote of the people) *
David S. Terry David Smith Terry (March 8, 1823 – August 14, 1889) was an American politician and jurist who served as the fourth chief justice of the Supreme Court of California; he was an author of the state's 1879 Constitution. Terry won a duel aga ...
, Chief Justice (1857–1859) (Killed while attempting to assassinate his successor, Stephen Field) * Stephen J. Field, Chief Justice (1859–1863) (Appointed by
President Lincoln Abraham Lincoln ( ; February 12, 1809 – April 15, 1865) was an American lawyer, politician, and statesman who served as the 16th president of the United States from 1861 until his assassination in 1865. Lincoln led the nation thro ...
to the U.S. Supreme Court) *
Addison Niles Addison Cook Niles (July 22, 1832 – January 17, 1890) was an attorney and served as Nevada County judge in California from 1862–1871 and as associate justice on the Supreme Court of California from 1872–1880. Biography Add ...
, Associate Justice (1872–1880) * Curtis D. Wilbur, Chief Justice (1923–1924) (Appointed by
President Coolidge Calvin Coolidge (born John Calvin Coolidge Jr.; ; July 4, 1872January 5, 1933) was the 30th president of the United States from 1923 to 1929. Born in Vermont, Coolidge was a Republican lawyer from New England who climbed up the ladder of Ma ...
as U.S. Secretary of the Navy) *
Mathew Tobriner Mathew Oscar Tobriner (April 2, 1904 – April 7, 1982) was an American lawyer and law professor who served as an associate justice of the California Supreme Court from 1962 to 1982. Early life and education A native of San Francisco, Tobriner ...
, Associate Justice (1962–1982) *
Roger J. Traynor Roger John Traynor (February 12, 1900 – May 14, 1983) was the 23rd Chief Justice of California (1964-1970) and an associate justice of the Supreme Court of California from 1940 to 1964. Previously, he had served as a Deputy Attorney General o ...
, Chief Justice (1964–1970), Associate Justice (1940–1964) (Well-respected legal scholar; generally regarded as the greatest justice in the history of the Court) * Stanley Mosk, Associate Justice (1964–2001) (Longest serving justice) * Wiley W. Manuel, Associate Justice (1977–1981) (First
African-American African Americans (also referred to as Black Americans and Afro-Americans) are an ethnic group consisting of Americans with partial or total ancestry from sub-Saharan Africa. The term "African American" generally denotes descendants of ensl ...
on the Court; well known for his
pro bono ( en, 'for the public good'), usually shortened to , is a Latin phrase for professional work undertaken voluntarily and without payment. In the United States, the term typically refers to provision of legal services by legal professionals for pe ...
work) * Rose E. Bird, Chief Justice (1977–1987) (First woman appointed to the Court; only Chief Justice ever not to be retained by the electorate) * Otto Kaus, Associate Justice (1981–1985) * Allen Broussard, Associate Justice (1981–1991) *
Cruz Reynoso Cruz Reynoso (May 2, 1931 – May 7, 2021) was an American civil rights lawyer and jurist. Reynoso was the first Chicano Associate Justice of the California Supreme Court, serving from 1982 to 1987. He also served on the California Third ...
, Associate Justice (1982–1987) (First Latino on the Court) * Janice Rogers Brown, Associate Justice (1996–2005) (Appointed by President G.W. Bush to the
United States Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit The United States Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit (in case citations, D.C. Cir.) is one of the thirteen United States Courts of Appeals. It has the smallest geographical jurisdiction of any of the U.S. federal appellate co ...
) * Ronald M. George, Chief Justice (1996–2011), Associate Justice (1991–1996)


List of chief justices


See also

*
Judiciary of California The Judiciary of California or the Judicial Branch of California is defined under the California Constitution as holding the judicial power of the state of California which is vested in the Supreme Court, the Courts of Appeal and the Superior C ...
*
Judicial Council of California The Judicial Council of California is the rule-making arm of the California court system. In accordance with the California Constitution and under the leadership of the Chief Justice of the Supreme Court of California, the council is responsible f ...
* J. Edward Johnson, a historian of the Court


References


External links


Supreme Court of CaliforniaCalifornia Supreme Court Historical SocietyAt the Lectern – California Supreme Court Practice Blog
{{DEFAULTSORT:Supreme Court Of California 1849 establishments in California Courts and tribunals established in 1849 California state courts