It's a minor point, to be sure. And I don't at all expect perfection from opinions by the Appellate Division of the Superior Court -- in this case, from Yolo County.
But, as a general matter, there's no reason to include stuff in a published opinion that's unnecessary as well as routine. For example, the following three paragraphs of the opinion:
"Defendant filed an opening brief.
The People filed a respondent’s brief.
Defendant filed a reply brief."
Okay, that's great. I'm glad everyone filed briefs. But we probably expected as much. No need to kill trees (or pixels) pointing it out.
There's some minor other stuff as well. Some bluebooking errors; for example, on page 7, the citation to "(Birchfield v. North Dakota
____U.S._____, 136 S. Ct. 2160.)" needs a year. And there's a crazy blank box of some sort on page 8; not sure what that's about.
But, again, nobody's perfect. I appreciate the opinion. Boating while intoxicated is a problem. Glad to see the panel make the extra effort involved to publish the opinion.
POSTSCRIPT - A couple hours after my post, they reposted the opinion to the "correct" version -- one that (thankfully) gets rid of that annoying box. Still doesn't have a year for Birchfield though.
