Justice Baxter is on the losing end of this 6-1 decision, in which Justice Chin patiently (and I believe rightly) concludes that the California Supreme Court's earlier holding in In re Tyrell J. should be overruled, and that warrantless searches of juvenile probationers without reasonable suspicion aren't permissible when the police search them unaware of the probation search condition.
Justice Baxter's dissent isn't perhaps too surprising, since he voted in the majority in In re Tyrell J. itself. Still, I think that even Justice Baxter should agree that the legal landscape has changed since then, including (and especially) as a result of the United States Supreme Court's opinion earlier this year in Samson -- a case from California, no less. You gotta change you mind when the world around you changes, my friend.
It was a good day for Justice Kennard, who wrote the dissent in In re Tyrell J. Sometimes you're vindicated over time. Even if it takes, as here, a decade or so for the rest of the world to realize that you're right.
Congratulations, Joyce.
P.S. - Guess whether "Jaime" is a boy or girl. Ready? Yep, you're right. Boy. Boy gangbanger with a gun, no less.
