County of King v. Turner (9th Cir. - Aug. 25, 2026)

This is a really smart and well-written opinion by Judge McKeown.

It's a high-profile case, so I won't say much about the merits; you can read about it elsewhere. Basically it affirms a district court injunction that stops the federal government from cutting off federal funds to local governments that do things the Trump administration doesn't like, whether in the program that's being funded by federal dollars or not. That, Judge McKeown holds, exceeds statutory authorization. You can perhaps tell local governments not to use federal dollars to help transgender persons or undocumented aliens, but you can't pull federal funds just because the locality does things you don't like with their own money and not in the program you're funding. That's the careful balance established by Congress, one over which the current administration runs roughshod.

Judge Bumatay predictably dissents. The difference between the two opinion is pronounced.

It's a testament to the current political and judicial climate that even a cogent and moderate opinion like this one will likely face challenge in both an en banc call and, potentially, in the Supreme Court.

Unfortunate and telling.

U.S. v. Aguilera (9th Cir. - Aug. 24, 2026)

According to this opinion, when a 27-year veteran judge in the Northern District of California, a graduate of Harvard Law School, was told that the federal sentences guidelines allow a defendant to go to trial and yet still ask for a 2-level reduction for acceptance of responsibility, his response was "I didn't realize that." (See page 15.)

Surprising.

Town of Apple Valley v. Apple Valley Ranchos Water (Cal. Supreme Ct. - Aug. 24, 2026)

I will take issue neither with the holding of this California Supreme Court opinion nor with its rationale. It's unanimous, after all. Far be it from me to register any dissent.

I will instead limit myself to merely a parenthetical note -- one that strongly came to mind after reading the first two paragraphs of Justice Kruger's opinion. Those paragraphs read:

"Under California’s Eminent Domain Law (Code Civ. Proc., § 1230.010 et seq.), a public entity’s right to take private property for public use depends, broadly speaking, on whether the taking is necessary to serve the public interest. As a general rule, public necessity is a matter for the public entity to decide, subject to limited judicial review: Ordinarily, when a public entity has adopted the statutorily required “resolution of necessity,” the relevant public necessity requirements are “conclusively establishe[d]” unless a court finds that the public entity has grossly abused its discretion in adopting the resolution. (Id., §§ 1245.250, subd. (a), 1245.255, subd. (b).)

In 1992, however, the Legislature created special rules for the taking of privately owned public utility property. Under those rules, even after adopting a resolution of necessity, a public entity’s decision to take over a privately owned electric, gas, or water public utility does not conclusively establish the propriety of the taking, but merely creates a “rebuttable presumption” that the statutory requirements for taking the property are met. (Code Civ. Proc., § 1245.250, subd. (b), added by Stats. 1992, ch. 812, § 3, p. 3846; see id., § 1240.650, subd. (c), added by Stats. 1992, ch. 812, § 2, p. 3846.)"

Hmmm. I wonder why the Legislature elected to pass much more favorable rules for privately owned utilities, as opposed to every single other type of property ownership? I'm sure it had nothing at all to do with the lobbying efforts or campaign contributions made by these large privately owned utilities? No, it would be a huge distortion of the democratic system to give wealthy institutions more favorable treatment under the law than everyone else. So I'm confident things like that never happen.

1 Community Compact v. City of Fresno (Cal. Ct. App. - Aug. 21, 2026)

Can you figure out from the very first paragraph the twists and turns that likely -- and in fact -- occurred in this case?

Here's the opening paragraph:

"Emphasizing the “profound impact” of Mexican-American labor leader and civil rights activist Cesar Chavez “on the people of Fresno” and concluding the renaming of a downtown thoroughfare in his honor would “provide a source of pride and community recognition,” the Fresno City Council (City Council) adopted Resolution No. 2023-056, which facilitated the renaming of the “East Kings Canyon Road, East Ventura Avenue, and West California Avenue alignment” (collectively, the Alignment)1 to Cesar Chavez Boulevard."

So in 2023, Fresno changed the street name to Cesar Chavez Boulevard. Plaintiffs didn't like that, and filed suit to change it back.

You can guess what happened next, right?

The trial court dismissed the lawsuit, and in 2025, plaintiffs appealed. But then, as you likely know, Cesar Chavez got cancelled. So in 2026, Fresno reverses course, and changes the street names back.

The City then, predictably, moves to dismiss the appeal as moot.

The Court of Appeal (1) agrees that the appeal is moot, but (2) decides to resolve it anyway, and affirms. The dissent, Justice Meehan, agrees that it's moot, and wouldn't decide the merits.

Maybe you wouldn't have necessarily predicted the disagreement between the majority and dissent. (I did not.) But that the appeal got mooted by subsequent events; yeah, once you saw that it was Cesar Chavez, you probably figured out what was eventually going to happen.

Int'l Longshore & Warehouse Union v. NLRB (9th Cir. - Aug. 20, 2026)

I'm not a Ninth Circuit judge, so I don't know the answer to this question. But I wonder how it feels when you write an opinion -- in this case, one by Judge Hawkins, in 2020 -- with a particular holding, and then six years later (i.e., today), your colleagues take a case en banc and unanimously say that you were wrong.

Maybe your reaction is: "Well, I decided my case, and thought I was right, and if some future case goes the other way, no big deal." Or maybe you instead feel a bit miffed. Either at your colleagues, at yourself, at your law clerk, or at some combination of all three.

Nothing you can do about it either way, of course.

Just wondering.

P.S. - Can the Ninth Circuit website please stop posting the same opinion multiple times for cases that are consolidated? Yes, I know, they're different case numbers, but it's the exact same opinion. Just put it up there once. Ever since the new website went up a month or so ago, you've often got to scroll through the day's opinions to screen out the duplicates (which sometimes, like today, have different captions). It's a slight -- but extant -- pain the butt. 

People v. Lightsay (Cal. Supreme Ct. - Aug. 17, 2026)

The California Supreme Court issued two death penalty opinions today. 

In one of those cases, it unanimously affirmed the re-imposition of a death sentence after a prior reversal. The underlying facts of that murder, which occurred in 1998, are so graphically horrific that I will say no more about it.

In the other case, the Court reversed (yet again) a death sentence that it had previously conditionally reversed for a determination of whether the defendant was competent when he represented himself at trial. As a result of today's opinion -- which involved only competence issues, not didn't involve the underlying events, so there's nothing about the actual crime -- the defendant will get a full retrial (assuming that he's now competent to stand trial). Presumably with an actual lawyer.

Though the funny part is that according to the California Department of Corrections, the defendant is now . . . 73 years old. Putting a 73-year old on trial for murder; in a death penalty case, no less.

You don't see that every day.

U.S. v. Jackson (9th Cir. - Aug. 17, 2026)

Sometimes it's sufficient to state the facts; the ultimate result is obvious.

This is one of those cases.

"These cases present the question whether the Attorney General can make someone an Acting United States Attorney—bypassing the usual requirement that a U.S. Attorney be confirmed by the Senate—by designating that person as the first assistant to an already-vacant office of U.S. Attorney. We hold that the Attorney General cannot do so. Although the Federal Vacancies Reform Act of 1998 (FVRA) provides that a first assistant automatically succeeds to a vacant office, that rule of automatic succession applies only to a first assistant who held that position at the time the vacancy arose; it does not apply to a first assistant who never served under a validly appointed official. 5 U.S.C. § 3345(a)(1). Nor can the Attorney General create a de facto Acting U.S. Attorney by delegating all of the functions and duties of the U.S. Attorney to someone else. The FVRA is “the exclusive means for temporarily authorizing an acting official to perform the functions and duties of any office,” so it prohibits a complete delegation of all of the U.S. Attorney’s powers to a single person. Id. § 3347.

Applying those principles, we affirm the district court’s order disqualifying Sigal Chattah, the putative Acting U.S. Attorney for the District of Nevada, from supervising the prosecutions of the defendants in these cases. . . .

On January 17, 2025, Jason Frierson resigned as the U.S. Attorney for the District of Nevada. At that time, First Assistant U.S. Attorney Sue Fahami became the Acting U.S. Attorney by operation of the FVRA, which provides that upon the resignation of a Senate-confirmed officer, “the first assistant to the office of such officer shall perform the functions and duties of the office temporarily in an acting capacity.” 5 U.S.C. § 3345(a)(1).

Two months later, the Attorney General invoked 28 U.S.C. § 546 to appoint Sigal Chattah as the interim U.S. Attorney for the District of Nevada, effective April 1. That statute permits the Attorney General to appoint an interim U.S. Attorney when the position of U.S. Attorney is vacant, id. § 546(a), but limits the service of an interim U.S. Attorney to a term of 120 days, id. § 546(c)(2). Chattah’s 120-day term would have expired on July 30.

On July 28, Chattah resigned as the interim U.S. Attorney. In her resignation letter, she stated that she “look[ed] forward to continuing to lead the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the District of Nevada.” The same day, the Attorney General designated Chattah as the First Assistant U.S. Attorney for the District of Nevada. In the designation order, the Attorney General asserted that “[a]s First Assistant United States Attorney, Ms. Chattah will have authority to serve as Acting United States Attorney upon a vacancy in that office” by operation of the FVRA. At the same time, the Attorney General also appointed Chattah “as a Special Attorney to the United States Attorney General pursuant to 28 U.S.C. § 515” and authorized her “to conduct in the District of Nevada, any kind of legal proceedings, civil or criminal, . . . which United States Attorneys are authorized to conduct.” . . . .

The maneuvers used to extend Chattah’s time atop the U.S. Attorney’s Office are not unique to the District of Nevada. The Attorney General has employed similar— though not always identical—tactics to extend the service of other temporary appointees who have not been confirmed by the Senate. The district court’s reasoning was consistent with that of the other courts to consider those tactics, every one of which has concluded that they violate the limits imposed by the FVRA. See United States v. Giraud, 160 F.4th 390, 400– 01 (3d Cir. 2025); United States v. Ramirez, 807 F. Supp. 3d 1086, 1105 (C.D. Cal. 2025); United States v. James, 810 F. Supp. 3d 752, 762–63 (E.D. Va. 2025), appeal docketed, No. 25-4673 (4th Cir. Dec. 22, 2025); United States v. Comey, 810 F. Supp. 3d 768, 780 (E.D. Va. 2025), appeal docketed, No. 25-4674 (4th Cir. Dec. 22, 2025); In re Grand Jury Subpoenas to Off. of N.Y. State Att’y Gen., 814 F. Supp. 3d 284, 292 (N.D.N.Y. 2026), appeal docketed, No. 26-156 (2d Cir. argued May 4, 2026); United States v. RamirezMartinez, No. 22-cr-01721, 2026 WL 113431, at *15 (D.N.M. Jan. 14, 2026)."

Yep. Obvious. 

People v. Shove (Cal. Supreme Court - Aug. 13, 2026)

I won't opine about the 5-2 dispute between the majority and the dissent about whether there was a Batson error here. You can read the entire 139-page thing on that point if you would like.

I will only say that this is one of those cases where even someone like me might want to sentence the defendant to death. Not the only one, for sure. But one.

Because Theodore Shove III does indeed seem like an affirmatively evil person.

Regardless, Shove is now 74 years old. He's going to die in prison. As a practical matter vis-a-vis his sentence, no big deal either way.

Turrey v. Vervent (9th Cir. - Aug. 12, 2026)

This is an opinion about accrual dates for RICO violations, but what's somewhat (very marginally) strange about it is that it seems like Judge Mendoza is deliberately writing the opinion to be extremely accessible to the general public.

Check it out for yourself. The language and analysis just seems . . . simple. To be clear: Not simplistic, but instead, pitched to a low-level audience. Explaining basic concepts using simple words and ideas.

That's not necessarily a bad thing, of course. It's just that your typical Ninth Circuit opinion involves complex issues and gets discussed in a complex fashion. This one just reads different to me.

That might not be unusual for a high-profile opinion that's potentially going to be read by lots of people in the general public. But it's not like normal people commonly pick up opinions about when injuries accrue for statute of limitations purposes in federal RICO statutes, right?

I put Judge Mendoza's text into a couple of online analysis websites and they all say the writing is at around a 12th grade level. That's not simple, of course. But it's a lot lower, I suspect, than a lot of Ninth Circuit opinions that are written for what I suspect is a more graduate-school audience.

Just unusual. Not bad. Different.

Something that jumped out at me that I thought I would point out.

Simerley v. Golden Gate Bridge & Highway Trans. Dist. (Cal. Ct. App. - August 11, 2026)

Maritime law. You know it. You love it. That's what today's Court of Appeal opinion is all about.

Loss of consortium claims aren't available under the Jones Act. So the wife of an injured seaman -- he worked on a ferryboat -- can't sue.

Sorry about that. But the law is the law. Demurrer sustained and affirmed.

Family Violence Appellate Project v. Superior Court (Cal. Supreme Ct. - Aug. 10, 2026)

I have no problem with today's opinion by the California Supreme Court, which holds that indigent litigants are entitled to have their hearings officially recorded on tape -- notwithstanding a statute that expressly precludes it -- if they can't afford a private court reporter. Indeed, that seems a very salutary holding, and I applaud it.

I'll nonetheless mention that the most critical part of the opinion, if my view, is the third footnote, so I want to make sure everyone reads it. The Court expressly holds that we're not just talking about in forma pauperis litigants; instead, this right applies to anyone who can't afford a court reporter. Here's what that footnote says:

"Although our discussion primarily refers to indigent litigants, we do not suggest some absolute standard of indigency. Instead, the right to proceed in forma pauperis extends to any litigant who cannot reasonably afford the costs necessary to access the judicial process. In this case, the litigants at issue include all litigants who cannot afford to hire a private court reporter to provide an official verbatim record of their proceeding. Because the costs involved in hiring a private court reporter can be significant, the population of litigants who cannot afford to hire a private court reporter, but who can afford to pay routine court fees and costs, may be large. Courts should be flexible in assessing a litigant’s ability to pay. We have previously rejected the contention that “a formal in forma pauperis application is required before relief can be granted.” (Conover, supra, 11 Cal.3d at p. 852.)"

As a result, I expect that a lot -- indeed, perhaps the majority of -- civil litigants will be entitled to ask for a tape recording under today's decision. With no formal IFP motion required.

I would expect to shortly see a massive increase in standardized recording in state courts.

U.S. v. Doyle (9th Cir. - Aug. 8, 2026)

This opinion is strangely sanitized.

Patrick Edward Doyle hooks up with a minor on a dating app -- she allegedly showed him a fake i.d. that showed that she was an adult -- and has explicit pictures of their hookup on his phone. He gets prosecuted and convicted on one count of possessing child pornography, and is sentenced to the statutory maximum of 10 years by Judge Battaglia (down here in San Diego) notwithstanding "his limited criminal history, his family support, and his numerous letters of support." The Ninth Circuit affirms.

It's a lengthy sentence. I would like to know more. Did the victim, or anyone else, deny showing Doyle a fake identification? How old was she? (I believe she's a teenager, since otherwise the statutory maximum would be 20 years, but not sure if she's 17, 13, or somewhere in between.) Was this Doyle first offense? (I know it's his first child porn conviction, since, again, the maximum would be higher otherwise, and know that he has "limited" criminal history, but are there other non-pornography convictions?) There's reference in the opinion to pictures of "[the victim] and other unidentified girls engaged in explicit sexual conduct" beyond the pictures of Doyle and the victim. Does that mean that there are pictures of Doyle having sex with other underage girls, or the victim having sex with other underage girls, or just other underage girls solo? (That matters, I think; if they are indeed pictures of Doyle and other girls, that shows an even larger scope of predation.) The opinion by Judge Brown, sitting by designation from the Southern District of Texas, leaves all of this unexplored.

One might perhaps think that Judge Brown leaves out these details in order to avoid mentioning sensitive subjects or potentially traumatizing the reader. Yet I am fairly confident that's not the reason, if only given one of the paragraphs that Judge Brown includes later in the opinion. Trigger warning: Stop reading this paragraph and skip to the next one if you don't want to read some really graphic stuff. Ready? Here's what I am talking about (from the opinion): "The videos and photographs of MV here are “abhorrent” and “reprehensible” to the extreme. Id. One eighteen-second video shows MV “performing fellatio on what we believe to be the defendant and [sic] his bed, in his house.” Another video shows an “unknown minor female” as she “anally penetrates herself with a razor, the handle end of a razor, where she then pulls the razor in and out. And there is apparent feces on the razor. At one point in time she licks the razor.”"

Oh my God.

The opinion hold that the district judge committed error by not reviewing these clips before showing them to a jury, but that the error was harmless, notwithstanding the fact that -- and this is incredibly unusual, I believe -- "'one of the jurors broke down crying' after seeing the child-pornography videos and a different juror requested counseling the day after the trial ended."

Intense material indeed.

So, on the one hand, I ended the opinion simultaneously wanting more information and yet wishing that I had perhaps been told less.

Gorobets v. Jaguar Land Rover North America (Cal. Supreme Ct. - Aug. 6, 2026)

I like this opinion, and it has practical significance for many California litigators.

The California Supreme Court unanimously holds that a party can validly make a Section 998 offer to compromise that contains multiple alternatives. The Court of Appeal held otherwise, and the Supreme Court disagrees. So, for example, if you want to make a 998 offer that says (1) I'll pay you $75,000 total, or (2) I'll pay you $30,000 plus whatever your reasonable costs and attorney's fees are, you choose, that's fine. If the other side rejects your offer and you do better thereafter, cost-shifting applies.

There are a wide variety of cases in which such alternative offers might be valuable, not just (as here) in Song-Beverley cases. You'll also need to be very careful in crafting such offers to make sure that the offer is both sufficiently clear and enables the other side to clearly accept any of the multiple offers, but if you do it right, this should be a powerful tool. As well as one that helps push cases to settlement.

So let's make these types of offers. As early as possible, for maximum benefit and pressure. (The Supreme Court also has a nifty line in the opinion that the responding party should use. The Court says that a court might find the offer not in good faith if the responding party asks for an extension of the 30-day deadline and/or informal discovery to more fully evaluate the offer and the offering party refuses to grant it. That's likely to become a standard tactic, at least amongst sophisticated counsel, when dealing with early and/or fulsome 998 offers.)

Overall, as I said, I think this is likely to advance the ball, and seems a proper interpretation of the statute, so I'm fully on board for Justice Corrigan's opinion. There's one part, however, that I wish she'd clarify.

The 998 offer at issue here had two alternatives. The Court of Appeal held that you can't do that, and the California Supreme Court disagrees. As a result, you can validly make what the Court calls "alternative choice"  998 offers. It also seems clear to me that the Court is saying that you're not necessarily limited to two alternatives in the offer, and that even three or more might still be valid. For example, maybe an offer says (1) I'll pay you $75,000 total, (2) or $30,000 plus your costs and fees, or (3) give you a brand new 2026 Land Rover, you choose. I believe that such an offer would be fully permissible under today's decision, and rightly so. Justice Corrigan says -- and I again agree with her -- that if an offer "deluge[s] an offeree with an array of choices" that simply "attempt[] to overwhelm an opponent [] in an effort at gamesmanship, rather than genuinely attempting to reach a settlement," such an offer might be found to be not in good faith. Makes sense. But, in a normal case, multiple options contained in a single offer are perfectly fine. I agree.

But notwithstanding what I believe to be the Court's clear holding in that regard, in multiple places in the opinion, it restates its holding as limited to offers that contain "two" options. For example, on page 27, the opinion says: "To reiterate, the alternative-choice offer at issue is best understood under general contract principles as an invitation to the offeree to enter into a contract under one of two equally acceptable sets of terms presented by the offeror." (Emphasis added) Similarly, on page 29, the opinion summarizes its holding by saying: "Furthermore, under our holding, cost-shifting penalties can only be triggered by a 998 offer in which (1) the rejected or lapsed offer clearly presents a choice between two distinct sets of terms, either of which the offeree may accept as a settlement; (2) at least one set of alternative terms is sufficiently certain to be fairly valued; and (3) the offeree fails to obtain a judgment or award that exceeds the value of a valid alternative." (Emphasis added)

I understand that the 998 offer here only contained two alternatives. But these portions of the opinion aren't talking about this particular offer; they're instead setting forth general rules. I believe that what the Court means to say is that a 998 offer is valid under today's holding when it clearly presents a choice between multiple distinct sets of terms -- not necessarily limited to two -- any of which the offeree may accept as settlement. The existing language in today's opinion could easily be read by litigants and trial courts as expressly limiting alternative-choice 998 offers to two options, no more. That would be bad, so I would edit the opinion to replace the "two" in those categorical statements with "multiple." Even if a trial court could potentially rightly understand the opinion (as I do) as not necessarily limiting offers to two alternatives, some courts -- and definitely some litigants -- could easily get it wrong, so I think it would assist things a lot to make it clear that even more-than-two-alternative options are permissible (at least when, as the Court already explains, they do not constitute excessive gamesmanship).

Other than that, great opinion. Helpful, and will make litigation marginally better in California.

A Company Hungary KFT v. Bespalov (Cal. Ct. App. - Aug. 4, 2026)

I, like many (but not all) lawyers, sometimes write intemperate things in draft briefs. You get caught up in the emotion of what you're arguing sometimes and it spills out onto the ink.

But on the second, or third, or fourth, edit, you invariably take those things out. Passions fade. Reason prevails. You (hopefully) understate rather than overstate. That's the nature of a good brief, particularly in the Court of Appeal.

That didn't happen here.

Jeremiah Reynolds, the head of litigation at Eisner in Beverly Hills, signs a set of appellate briefs that does not receive a warm reception in the 2/4. Here's a snippet from Justice Zukin's opinion today:

"The first line of the opening brief reads: “This is an appeal about double standards.” The brief explains that judgment was entered against the Bespalovs “due to the Respondent Court’s manifold and prejudicial legal errors and unchecked bias.” “This judgment,” it says, “could not have been reached without . . . the Respondent Court’s two thumbs firmly on the scale for [respondents].” The brief claims that “the outcome of this case was predetermined by the double standard employed by the Respondent Court.” It further contends that “the Respondent Court abdicated [its] responsibility” when it credited the testimony of an opposing witness. It asserts “that the Respondent Court was as biased against the Bespalovs as it was in favor of [respondent].” (Italics in original.) “The Court,” it complains, “bent over backwards to assist [respondent] in glossing over the gaping and dispositive flaws with its case . . . and it relentlessly shut down the Bespalovs’ ability to present effective defenses. The resulting $5.9 million Judgment was a travesty.” This vitriol made the introduction memorable, in all the wrong ways.

The body of the brief continues to press the allegations of bias but offers no evidence to substantiate them. It deploys headings that refer to “Biased Trial Rulings” and say the trial court gave respondent “Carte Blanche to Introduce Whatever Evidence It Wanted.” Yet nothing in the arguments beneath those headings explains how the court’s rulings were biased, beyond the mere fact that counsel disagreed with them. In other sections, the brief accuses the court of showing “unending deference” to the respondent, abdicating its judicial responsibilities, and making “a mockery of due process.” It concludes by again charging the court with employing an “unabashed double standard.”

The reply brief maintains the drumbeat of insults. It says the trial court failed to accept “obvious propositions” and “helped [respondent] gloss over its fatal standing problem.” It calls the court’s final ruling “a runaway Statement of Final Decision.” Finally, it treats the court’s alleged bias as assumed, remarking snidely in response to an opposing argument: “it is manifestly unavailing to argue that . . . any error was harmless because the court was already biased against Mr. Bespalov anyway.”"

The Court of Appeal issues an order to show cause regarding sanctions. Although Mr. Reynolds then apologizes for the invectives, he goes on, in both briefs and at oral argument, to somewhat defend what he wrote.

That's not the play. It doesn't work, and results in (1) a published opinion that mentions Mr. Reynolds by name, and (2) $1000 in sanctions.

Just fall on your sword. Apologize, full stop. Say -- accurately -- that you got caught up on the moment, and that you won't do it again.

You might still get sanctioned. But at least you won't get an opinion like this one. (Probably.)

Los Angeles County ERA v. County of LA (Cal. Supreme Court - Aug. 3, 2026)

This is an unusual 4-3 split opinion by the California Supreme Court. Unlike the United States Supreme Court, you don't routinely see such sharply split opinions from that tribunal.

Plus, given the underlying topic, it's an unusually sharp dissent. Still generally moderate in tone, but the case is a hypertechnical one about "the job classification and salary-setting authority granted to public pension boards and county boards of supervisors." Not exactly a high-profile, hot button topic.

The majority opinion is by Justice Corrigan, and the dissent is by Justice Groban. Justice Simons, sitting by designation from the 1/5, is the (exciting) swing vote.

Thompson v. Superior Court (Cal. Ct. App. - July 30, 2026)

The defendant here is charged with felony burglary and receives mental health diversion for alleged PTSD despite having 19 different felony convictions (for theft, fraud, forgery, assault with a deadly weapon, etc.) during the past dozen years.

To tell you the truth, I'm not entirely confident that the twentieth time will be the charm here.

People v. McAllister (Cal. Ct. App. - July 30, 2026)

What you know from reading this opinion is that Russell McAllister was sentenced to 75 years in prison for first-degree murder of another inmate at High Desert State Prison, plus another 12 years for carrying the shank. So, essentially, the rest of his life in prison.

What you don't know, but what's easily discovered, is that McAllister was sent to prison in the first place for attempted murder. Then, while in prison, convicted of threatening to kill the district attorney who prosecuted. Then, also while in prison, attempting to kill another inmate. All of this before the present offense, in which he appears to be the first time he successfully killed someone.

The guy is clearly feeling at home in prison. Maybe he, uh, I don't know, shouldn't be let out in the yard that much at this point?

Why does the Court of Appeal partially remand the case back to the trial court? Because it potentially improperly imposed two different fines -- one for $5,000, and another for $300 -- instead of a single fine.

As if that really practically matters here.

People v. Kazarian (Cal. Ct. App. - July 30, 2026)

Sometimes courts get too aggressive in finding an error to be harmless.

Not here.

"On a late January evening in 2023, around 1:20 a.m., San Bernardino County Deputy Sheriff Gabriel Dominguez responded to a medical aid call at a gas station in Apple Valley, at the intersection of Kiowa Road and Bear Valley Road. A fire truck, paramedics, and at least one other emergency response vehicle were already at the scene attempting to contact an unresponsive man in the driver’s seat of a vehicle parked at a gas pump. . . . As Dominguez walked towards the truck, he saw the driver “woke up,” then “fidget[ed]” in his vehicle for a few seconds, reaching towards the center console, and then he “put the truck into drive.” Pulling forward, defendant almost hit the fire truck parked in front of him . . . . When Dominguez exited the gas station, he was about five car lengths behind defendant, which he estimated was less than 100 feet, perhaps closer to 75 feet. When Dominguez looked at his speedometer, “we were reaching speeds over a hundred” miles per hour. Defendant did not slow down or pull over.

About two miles from the gas station, defendant approached an intersection controlled by a four-way stop sign. He was still traveling “over a hundred” miles per hour, with Dominguez still about five car lengths behind him. Defendant did not stop at the intersection; according to Dominguez, defendant did not slow down “[a]t all.” . . .

About 100 feet past where defendant failed to stop at the stop sign, defendant approached some railroad tracks that crossed Kiowa Road, with Dominguez still in pursuit. Defendant “didn’t slow down” for the tracks and, as a result, “caught [some] air” in crossing the tracks; Dominguez estimated that the tires on defendant’s truck were “three, four feet” off the ground. Defendant’s vehicle “fishtailed a little bit” as the tires “came down and contacted the asphalt.” Defendant had been traveling at “[a]t least a hundred” miles per hour when he “us[ed] the railroad tracks as essentially a ramp,” which Dominguez testified violated “Vehicle Code 23103(a).”

Next in the pursuit, about four miles away from the starting point at the gas station, still on Kiowa Road and with defendant still traveling at a hundred miles an hour with Dominguez in pursuit, the duo approached another intersection with a four-way stop sign. Defendant again did not stop, which Dominguez testified was another violation of Vehicle Code section 22450.

Dominguez fell back slightly to about seven to 10 car lengths behind defendant as defendant approached another intersection, where Kiowa Road continued with a dirt surface. Dominguez lost sight of the truck due to dust and discontinued the pursuit pursuant to department policy, but continued to travel along the road at a safe speed. Dominguez found the truck in someone’s front yard near the end of the road where it made a hard right turn. The truck appeared to have knocked a fence down, and the vehicle’s airbags had deployed. Dominguez did not immediately find defendant, who was not at or near the truck, but after several minutes of searching, Dominguez located defendant “off in the desert,” hiding in some bushes, and arrested him."

The Court of Appeal holds that, among other things, the jury should perhaps have been instructed in more detail about what constitutes speeding or failing to stop at a stop sign, those errors were clearly harmless. The issue here wasn't whether the defendant perfectly stopped or where exactly the limit line was. Defendant said he didn't do anything wrong at all, and the officer testified as he did. The jury, not surprisingly, believed the officer. Additional instructions wouldn't have made the slightest bit of difference.

True that.

Two years in prison. Doubled to four for the prior strikes. 

People v. Carrillo (Cal. Ct. App. - July 28, 2026)

If you know anything about the relationship between the Hispanic and African-American gangs in Riverside, you'll know they're . . . not good. Personally, I did not know what caused this situation, at least beyond the usual rivalries, but according to Justice Menetrez, the history here is somewhat unique. Here's the background:

"East Side Riva is a Hispanic street gang in Riverside, California with roughly 500 active members. There are a number of cliques within East Side Riva, including Clique Los Primos, which is also known as CLPS or Primos. . . .

The Mexican Mafia is a Hispanic prison gang founded in the 1950’s. The prison gang acts as a parent organization and exerts control over all Hispanic street gangs in Southern California. The Mexican Mafia forces the street gangs to pay taxes and disciplines their members when they are incarcerated. East Side Riva pays taxes to the Mexican Mafia.

The 1200 Block East Coast Crips (1200 Block) is an African-American street gang in Riverside, California. Georgia Street Mob, or GSM, is a clique within 1200 Block. East Side Riva and 1200 Block occupy or claim the same territory. According to the People’s gang expert, Detective Trevor Childers, the area has a history of racial violence that grew out of a “beef” between East Side Riva and 1200 Block in 1991. At the time, East Side Riva and 1200 Block were cooperating to target rival gangs in other neighborhoods of Riverside. The Mexican Mafia learned of East Side Riva’s alliance with 1200 Block, and the Mexican Mafia was not happy, because the gang did not cooperate with African Americans. The Mexican Mafia punished East Side Riva by “put[ting] a greenlight” on the gangs’ members, so East Side Riva members were being assaulted in jails. The Mexican Mafia directed East Side Riva not to cooperate with African Americans ever again. In the years that followed, the violence between East Side Riva and 1200 Block became “astronomical.” East Side Riva and 1200 Block became “mortal enemies.”"

One-time confederates, now implacable antagonists. A classic movie plot line.

That history made this opinion worthy reading even on its own. But there's another portion as well that made me want to write about it.

At issue here is the conviction of Steven Carrillo, a member of Primos, for the first-degree murder of Derrion Thomas and the attempted murder of "Isaiah S." Both victims were African-American and hurt in a car-to-car shooting after a confrontation at a local Motel 6.

Both victims were carrying a gun at the time of the shooting, and at trial, the defendant contended that he shot them in self-defense. The jury disagreed, based in large part on a video of the prior events at the motel and, critically, the testimony of the surviving victim, Isiah. Isiah said that the victims never shot at the defendant; there was little to no other evidence about where respective shots were fired (apart from the recovery of the defendant's vehicle, which had ten bullet holes in it, but there was some reason to believe that those bullet holes may have potentially been planted there).

The Court of Appeal holds (and everyone agrees) that it was error for the trial court to allow the police officer to testify at trial that during his interview of Isiah, he believed that Isiah was telling the truth. It is obviously not okay to let a lay witness testify to someone's alleged veracity. The Court of Appeal nonetheless finds that this error was harmless, since the defendant was fairly clearly guilty regardless.

There's something to be said for that conclusion. But a portion of that analysis -- the part that begins on page 21 -- seems wrongheaded to me.

Justice Menetrez initially says: "First, the evidence of Carrillo’s animus toward African Americans and his willingness to use violence against them was overwhelming. For instance, he referred to himself as a killer of 1200 Block, the Georgia Street Mob clique, or “snails” (a derogatory term for 1200 Block and African Americans more generally). He called a shotgun a “‘snail gauge’” and said that he was ready for a fight. He used a racial slur when talking about Isaiah and Thomas to the undercover agents, saying that he got “into it” with the victims because of their race. Notes found in his backpack after the shooting referred to the shootout with “snails,” and he gave himself high marks for it. All of that evidence shows that Carrillo targeted the victims and intended to kill them because of his animus toward them, not because he believed that his life was in danger."

But the fact that you hate a particular racial group and subsequently laud yourself for killing one of them does not prove that they didn't shoot at you first. You would say all of that even if the shooting was in self-defense. Is it relevant evidence? Sure. It may provide a potential motive for an alleged premeditated attack. But it's far from overwhelming. Someone can seriously hate sharks, for example, and be excited about killing one of them, but that doesn't prove that the shark wasn't coming to eat him when the speargun was fired.

Justice Menetrez next says: "Second, Carrillo’s claim that the victims were trying to intimidate him or threaten him is not supported by the video evidence. Carrillo said that one of them lifted his shirt and flashed a gun at Carrillo, but the video shows no such conduct. He also claimed that they followed him and pulled up to his car at the stoplight. But the video shows that Isaiah left first, Carrillo ran a red light to catch up, and Carrillo pulled up to Isaiah’s car. The video further shows that before following Isaiah, Carrillo retrieved a gun from his room."

Yes, that's relevant evidence. It shows that Carrillo may not always be telling the truth. But sometimes, particularly when you're talking to the police after a murder, you make up particular facts even if you're innocent. Is that a great strategy? No. But it's human nature. The fact that some details may perhaps be unconfirmable (or made up) doesn't prove that the critical detail -- who shot first -- is also a lie. A jury could easily conclude that Carrillo may have exaggerated or wrongly relayed various details but that he was still telling the truth when he said that the victims (who were admittedly carrying weapons) shot at him first.

The analysis here ends with Justice Menetrez saying: "Carrillo emphasizes that Isaiah never said that Carrillo shot first, whereas Carrillo told the undercover agents and the interviewing officers that the victims shot first. However, the jurors could reasonably infer from the evidence that Carrillo shot at the victims first. Isaiah testified that the person in the Jaguar “gangbanged” on his group and cocked a gun, and then he and his companions “started getting shot at.”" But the whole question is whether Isaiah was telling the truth; the fact that he testified at trial that he was "gangbanged" and "shot at" doesn't mean that the events actually went down as he described.

The last portion of the Court of Appeal's opinion, which says that Carrillo would be guilty regardless since he admits that he "racked" his gun at the victims and thereby instigated the events at issue, is less problematic. I can potentially see this as a valid basis for the ultimate result.

The rest, though? Troubling.

Even more troubling, honestly, is the apparent state of gang race relations in Riverside. As the opinion presumably accurately recounts:

"According to the People’s gang expert: “It’s to the point now, that if you investigate a crime in the east side Riverside neighborhood, and the victim is Mexican, you assume you’re looking for a black suspect and vice versa.”"

Eww.

U.S. v. Anten (9th Cir. - July 27, 2026)

It's an easy lesson, but one that perhaps bears mention:

Don't send an email to the FBI that says "I WILL UNABOMB THE LOS ANGELES FBI HQ.”

That'll earn you some prison time. As here.

Weiss v. Permanente Medical Group (9th Cir. - July 24, 2026)

I would like everyone to know that I've recently had some substantial religious revelations. So while I might have been willing to do a lot of things before -- for example, getting vaccinated -- beliefs can obviously change over time.

So, for example, in today's opinion, the Ninth Circuit holds that a healthcare worker who claimed a religious objection to getting vaccinated for COVID-19 could sue when she was placed on unpaid leave for not responding to her employer's questions regarding the sincerity of her purported religious beliefs; e.g., asking her whether she had accepted vaccinations or medicine for other ailments, notwithstanding her alleged belief that the Bible ordered her not to take "foreign substances" into her body.

This ruling obviously makes it harder -- or at least riskier -- for employers to deny religious objections.

Personally, I've always been intrigued by those stricter aspects of Buddhism that require substantial annual pilgrimages; say, 10-day trips to places like Hawaii or Fiji. Careful meditation and such. Often required during, say, final exam or grading periods. Though sometimes I feel like the Seventh Day Adventists are right and that the Bible orders me not to work at all on any Saturdays. I'm pretty flexible over time as to which religious beliefs I find attractive, but once persuaded, I'm very committed to the cause.

Of course sincere religious beliefs should be accommodated. But there may simultaneously be some settings in which a genuine doubt as to one's sincerity might be appropriate and permissible. The demonstrably sudden and unprecedented religiousity of healthcare workers (and others) during COVID-19 might perhaps have been one of those settings.

In re Conservatorship of E.A. (Cal. Supreme Ct. - July 23, 2026)

It's hard (though far from impossible) to argue with what Chief Justice Guerrero has to say here. The Court holds that lengthy delays in holding LPS hearings -- basically, hearings that decide whether the individual at issue remains sufficiently disabled to hold them against their will -- may well violate Due Process, but that such a violation doesn't automatically result in letting the person go, and is instead subject to harmless error review. So no relief here, since the person ultimately had a hearing that found that yep, still seriously disabled.

As I said, her arguments are strong ones. I particularly appreciated the last couple of pages of the opinion, which I suspected were coming and which said that notwithstanding the Court's ruling, trial courts can still try to effectively police speedy trial rights by entering orders and the like and that appellate courts could potentially grant writs as well. All of which is right.

But, with respect, I do think that Chief Justice Guerrero may somewhat wrongly minimize the interests at stake here. She says that there's principally a "dignitary interest" in having a speedy trial, designed in central part to avoid "the possibility that the defense will be impaired" by a long-delayed trial. Justice Liu emphasizes this point in his concurrence (joined by three other justices), highlighting the need to respect "the inherent dignity of each person" by granting them a speedy adjudication. These concerns, again, seem accurate to me.

But, to me, we're talking about more than "dignity" here. We're talking about right not to stay locked up without a trial. Yes, that violates someone's dignity, and treats them as less than a person. But the right to one's liberty -- the most basic and fundamental of those liberties, the right not to be locked up by the state -- isn't just a dignitary interest. It's literally the most central of one's liberty against the state. It is the fundamental liberty interest, without which few (if any) other liberties matter. If the state can lock you up, against your will, without a trial, your other alleged rights don't make much of a difference. And, in the present case, the fact that the person once had a trial, long ago, that held that they were disabled then doesn't make much of a difference. Maybe you were disabled (or, in a different context, a criminal) then, but that doesn't mean they get to lock you up now.

I understand that we have pretrial detention in criminal cases; after, I might add, a preliminary hearing in which a neutral magistrate or grand jury decides that there's probable cause. That's a big deal too. But to say that you can be locked up, potentially for years, while all the while insisting that you're no longer a danger to yourself or the community; well, that's something that we see in authoritarian states a lot, and I would like to think that we're different than that. Not merely because people have a "dignitary" interest in being heard. But because that's what it literally means to be a (mostly) free person; the entitlement to actively resist a state that seeks to lock you up without your consent.

Maybe I just want to highlight, even more than the Court does, the interests at stake here. Because in my view, they're incredibly serious ones. Maybe the most serious ones imaginable, save death.

Theis v. Intermountain Educ. Sch. Dist. (9th Cir. - July 21, 2026)

Today's Ninth Circuit opinion is fairly high profile, so it'll get a tolerable amount of mention in the legal press already. But I nonetheless wanted to write about it here.

First off, let's present the case in a neutral fashion. I want to first get your reaction without knowing who's ox is getting gored. That way, you'll approach the issue as you should: without a political reaction one way or the other. What constitutional law doctrine makes sense, regardless of which group stands to practically gain or lose as a result of that underlying theory.

Let's set forth two noncontroversial backstops at the outset. First, as a general matter, under the First Amendment, employees of the government can't be told what they can or can't say outside of the work setting. If I want to say that Trump (or Obama) is awesome, or that our education system is terrible (or fantastic), or vote a certain way on my own time and outside of work, the state can't regulate that. Free speech.

On the flip side, as a government employee, the government can generally tell me what to say while I am doing my work. So if I'm a math teacher, the government can tell me to tell my students that two plus two is four, even if I'm convinced it's five. And, at least in the elementary and high school setting, if I am a teacher and the state makes me say that the Union won the Civil War and rightly so (to abolish slavery), the First Amendment doesn't allow me to tell my students instead that the South either won or should have won. The state's paying for my speech, so they can tell me what to say.

That's the law, and rightly so.

The question that the Ninth Circuit confronts today lies somewhat in the intersection of those two bookend principles.

Imagine that you're a middle school teacher, or guidance counselor in the same setting. You want to put up a poster, or want to prominently display a particular book in your very small office. one that your middle school students will definitely see. I'm deliberately not going to tell you what that poster or book is about. Maybe it's Martin Luther King. Maybe it's Trump. Or Che Guevara. Ditto for the book. Maybe it's Das Capital, or the Fountainhead, or Mein Kampf. Shouldn't matter. It's something that's clearly on a political, hot-button issue, and that definitely expresses an opinion on it. An opinion that some people in your workplace, including students, will perhaps like, and that other people will most definitely not like.

Do you have a First Amendment right to put up that book or poster? Or can the state tell you that's not appropriate and make you take it down?

That's today's case. One that results in both a majority opinion and dissent.

Which side are you going to take? Without knowing what the book is about.

Because -- and this will perhaps not surprise you in the slightest -- once I tell you which Ninth Circuit judges are in the majority and which judge is in the dissent, you'll simultaneously be able to accurately predict what type of material -- left- or right-wing -- we're actually talking about in this case.

So before you know that, what do you think? Is the state allowed to regulate what types of hot-button political material, related to but not "officially" part of the curriculum, middle school teachers or counselors prominently display in their student-facing office?

Got your answer yet?

Okay. So, in the present case, the hot-button issue involves transgender rights. The state wants to stop a middle school counselor from prominently displaying in his office, right behind his desk, books that are fairly clearly anti-transgender: He is He and She is She, alongside a book called Johnny the Walrus that has the same theme (namely, that Johnny calling himself a walrus doesn't make him one).

Judges Owens and Sung hold that's permissible; that because the counselor is on the state's dime and in the state's workplace, they're paying for his speech, and they can tell him to take the books down. Judge VanDyke dissents, saying that the counselor has a First Amendment right to display the books, even if the state (or others in the workplace) don't like the message.

Who's right?

As a matter of precedent, the majority has the better of the argument. There are a fair number of Ninth Circuit cases in analogous settings, all of which hold that the state can regulate on-campus speech by government employees. Judge VanDyke argues in dissent that the underlying law changed once the Supreme Court decided Kennedy in 2022, which was a freedom of religion case that held that a high school football coach was allowed to say a prayer on the field (alongside students) after the game. But the rule is that unless an intervening decision is "clearly irreconcilable" with circuit precedent, you still have to follow precedent, and I don't think Judge VanDyke makes a persuasive case that the Court's religion precedent necessarily overrules the circuit's free speech holdings in this area.

Precedent aside, though, ponder what the correct rule should be. Because there are serious dangers, in my opinion, on both fronts.

On the one hand, I really don't want teachers entirely free to express their off-base personal opinions on hot-button topics to middle school students. The state gets to -- and should -- regulate that. If you want to express your personal opinion on your own time about why America should be an all-white nation, or how the Jews really control the world, go ahead, you have that right. But, sorry, the state's allowed to -- and should -- say that you've got to keep those opinions to yourself when you talk about slavery or World War II to your students. Maybe -- maybe -- if the students ask you for your personal opinions, you can tell them what you think (or, at a minimum, tell them you're happy to talk to them outside of school). But you're not entitled to shove your personal opinions on hot-button topics down the throats of middle school students on the state's dime; the state can let you if it wants, but it can also regulate that if it so chooses. There are serious dangers if the law is otherwise.

At the same time, I'll readily concede that this position has serious downsides as well. If I'm a middle school teacher -- and there are lots of them -- it's a non-trivial harm if the state's allowed to force me to tell my students that President Trump is objectively the greatest president in history, that the Civil War was entirely about state's rights, or that the Twenty Second Amendment really only bars presidents from being elected to two consecutive terms. During all of which, potentially, I am compelled to wear a red MAGA hat and a pin that says "Trump 2028." In a different era, perhaps these would be viewed as absurd hypotheticals. No longer, I fear. Sure, I could always quit my job and teach at a private school, or in a different state. (Assuming, at least, that the federal government didn't elect to withhold funds from, or actively sue, institutions that failed to follow federal guidelines on these fronts -- another previously-absurd hypothetical that is now anything but.) Overall, a rule that allowed the state to entirely regulate what posters or books or words I employ during my teaching would have consequences, ones that could potentially be seriously abused.

Judge VanDyke's dissent raises similar points, albeit in a predictably partisan fashion, with references to "woke" principles and the like. In this regard, the majority opinion has a point when it argues that the dissent, "despite its length, is cheap cotton candy: a lot of fluff but not real substance." (Alongside a footnote that critiques Judge VanDyke for quoting Justice Powell's plurality opinion in Bakke, which, notwithstanding Judge VanDyke's response, really does have nothing whatsoever to do with today's result.)

But, nonetheless, ponder the overall point. What's the right balance here? What's the state's legitimate role in regulating the workplace, student-facing speech of middle school government employees?

I'll make only one more point. Judge VanDyke argues in his dissent that "the school officials’ real interest in censoring Mr. Theis’s personal speech in this case is not efficiency or anything similarly benign, but rather something much more nefarious: to give children the false impression that all the adults in the school personally share the same woke perspective on some or all of the most disputed questions in our culture today (emphasis in original), saying that's "the reality of what is likely really going on in cases like this."

It's absurd missives like this -- oft-repeated, unfortunately -- that merit justifiable rebuke. In reality, no one -- and I mean, no one -- is going to seriously think that a guy like Mr. Theis (or his ilk) is really in favor of transgender rights because he's not permitting to prominently display anti-trans books in his office. We all have known teachers or others like Mr. Theis in our lives. We all know where they stand, regardless of whether they've got books sitting out on their desks. No one thinks, or even would think, that every teacher in Eastern Oregon (!) personally favors transgender rights just because the state does not allow the prominent display of anti-transgender books or posters in their office.

Anyway, an interesting opinion today. One that I encourage you to seriously ponder. Especially in the modern era.

Garcia Demetrio v. Blache (9th Cir. - July 20, 2026)

The success rate for asylum petitions from citizens of Mexico is strikingly low. It remains to be seen if the petitioner here will ultimately prevail. But at least for the moment, she wins in the Ninth Circuit, which holds that the BIA erred in denying her petition seeking asylum and withholding of removal. (In the meantime, the Ninth Circuit grants a stay on her deportation, so at a minimum, she's at least got some time in the States.)

Here's what she said happened to her:

"In October 2023, Garcia and her children fled to the United States from their home in Ciudad Altamirano, Guerrero, Mexico, after becoming targets of a criminal group. One month earlier, Garcia’s husband disappeared without trace or explanation. Garcia reported this disappearance to local authorities, who failed to investigate despite her follow-ups. Her husband remains missing.

After learning that her husband had disappeared, two men showed up at Garcia’s residence. The men told Garcia’s aunt, with whom Garcia lived, that they were government officials who wished to speak with Garcia about her eligibility for financial assistance programs for single mothers. The men left instructions for Garcia to attend a follow-up appointment the next day at an office in the city center.

When Garcia arrived at the office, she was confronted by four masked men, armed with rifles and wearing vests. They refused to let Garcia leave. The men told Garcia that they wanted to “take [her] girl and [her] boy to work with them” because they knew that Garcia was alone. The men planned to use her son to sell and traffic drugs, and said that her daughter might sell drugs or be raped. The men told her that she had two days to consider their offer or they would kill Garcia and her children. Garcia went home, collected her children, and immediately fled, taking a bus to Mexico City. She left without reporting the incident to the police; she wanted to “run as far as possible because [she] had fear that they could kill [her] and [her] three children.” Criminal organizations in Mexico routinely force adolescents to sell and transport drugs on their behalf, and adolescent girls are particularly at risk of sex trafficking.

On November 4, 2023, Garcia and her children entered the United States through the Nogales port of entry. She sought asylum upon arrival." 

U.S. v. Holcomb (9th Cir. - July 17, 2026)

This one took a long time.

It's an appeal in a criminal case that was filed in 2023. The oral argument was in September 2024, and the panel issued its original opinion roughly six months later, in March 2025.

So far, fairly routine.

But then the panel withdraws the opinion in September of 2025. It then takes another ten months to prepare and submit a revised opinion, which it does today.

It's a Fourth Amendment case, and there's a big fight between the majority and the dissent about whether the search here -- which was conducted pursuant to a warrant -- should have stopped once it reflected that the alleged crime pretty much certainly did not occur. (The purported victim alleged that she was raped, but the video, which she didn't know was being taken, fairly convincingly showed that the events were consensual, and that what the victim alleged had occurred did not, in fact, transpire. The opinion contains excruciating detail regarding what actually went down during this sexual interaction.)

I would predict that we have not seen the last moves regarding this appeal. There will likely be an en banc call, if only given the nature of the dispute and the fact that the panel's result means that it will likely be impossible to convict the defendant of the other crime they eventually saw after they continued the search: the defendant's rape of his nine-year old daughter, a video of which was on the same computer and for which the defendant was sentenced to 20 years in prison.

U.S. v. Hendrikson (9th Cir. - July 15, 2026)

In today's opinion, the Ninth Circuit vacates two counts of interstate solicitation in a murder-for-hire plot, for which the defendant (James Hendrikson) was sentenced to two 20-year terms of imprisonment back in 2016. One might facially think that's a big deal -- 40 less years in prison.

But those sentences were imposed concurrently with a ton of other counts. As a result, even after directing judgments of acquittal on these two counts, Mr. Hendrikson remains sentenced to two life terms in prison. Plus 20 years after that. (Plus, after he's dead, five years of supervised release, a supervision which should be fairly easy to accomplish.)

So no big deal in reality.

The underlying facts are fairly unusual. As Judge Fletcher explains: "James Terry Henrikson hired a hit man who murdered two of his business associates. He hired a different hit man to murder three other business associates, but those murders were never carried out." How much did he pay for the murder that actually occurred, you might ask? $20,000.

That's relatively inexpensive, no? The price of a (fairly crappy) new car is apparently the price of a human life? Whoda thunk?

Jackson v. Meyer (Cal. Ct. App. - July 14, 2026)

Let me see if I have this right.

A married couple has a trust in which they've placed all their community property, but then -- after 48 (!) years of marriage, if my calculations are correct -- Wife files for divorce. Promptly thereafter, as part of the dissolution proceedings, Wife revokes (as permitted by the trust) her contributions to the trust, and sets up her own trust in her own name. Wife serves Husband with this revocation, and while Husband objects that the revocation should be filed in court as well, he doesn't do anything to contest the revocation.

For some reason, the dissolution proceedings take a long time. Five years after filing for divorce, Wife dies. Wife appears to have left her share of the community property to the daughter of Wife and Husband, Linda, who is the trustee of Linda's (separate trust).

Here's the part I find stunning:

At that point, Husband files a petition to declare that Wife's revocation is invalid, and that he -- rather than his daughter -- should get all the money and be the trustee of the entire community assets. Needless to say, the daughter objects.

The trial court disagrees with Husband, and the Court of Appeal affirms. Rightly so.

Wife clearly didn't want her share going to the Husband from whom she sought a divorce. At least from what I know from the opinion, I'm more than happy this case turned out the way it did.

Price v. Diab (9th Cir. - July 13, 2026)

It's the summer doldrums on the California appellate side, so there hasn't been much for a bit. Today does, however, see this opinion by the Ninth Circuit, and I appreciated what Judge Bress did here.

It would have been easy to simply reverse in a brief unpublished memorandum disposition, or to reverse with some skimpy analysis. But Judge Bress doesn't take the absurdly easy route. His opinion is relatively  short -- ten pages -- but it takes the issues seriously, and then adds something helpful at the end.

It's an Americans with Disabilities Act case filed by a high-frequency litigant, so the defendant (potentially very smartly) doesn't even respond to the complaint and lets his default be taken. As a result, the plaintiff gets injunctive relief -- an order to comply with the ADA -- but nothing else. The district court is clearly not psyched by the plaintiff's tactics, so doesn't award even a penny of fees, despite the somewhat small amount ($9,364) requested by plaintiff. The district court's theory was that since all that the plaintiff got was an order that required defendant to comply with an already-existing law, she wasn't a prevailing party at all, since nothing changed.

Judge Bress disagrees, and he's right. The judgment changes the situation of the parties. The injunction makes it much easier to actually enforce the ADA (with contempt), and that rightly counts as "winning" under the ADA. You're a prevailing party. The analysis by Judge Bress on this point is cogent and compelling.

Then, at the end, Judge Bress adds a tangential discussion about fees, and I think it's a helpful one. Not only in this case, but in cases generally. He writes:

"To the extent Price asks us to rule on the amount of fees she should receive, we leave that determination for the district court in the first instance. But to provide guidance to the district court and Price on remand, we make a brief observation on one argument that Price advances in this court.

The district court found that even if Price were a prevailing party, her counsel “would not be entitled to the unreasonable amount that they request.” Price, 761 F. Supp. 3d at 1290. The court noted that Price’s fee motion appeared to be “recycled . . . nearly whole-cloth from another recent case” her attorneys had filed. Id. at 1289. As a result, the motion had copy-paste errors, did not reflect the procedural history of the case, and used incorrect male pronouns for Ms. Price. Price’s counsel does not dispute reusing a template from a prior case. But in briefing before this court, counsel characterizes the errors the district court identified as “irrelevant editing mistakes that would have required additional billable time to address.” 

It should go without saying that the issues the district court identified are not “irrelevant editing mistakes,” but instead reflect a lack of diligence. Sound lawyering (of course) includes making sure that the fee motion papers pertain to the case at issue. Courts consider the “[q]uality of representation” when determining a reasonable fee award. Van Gerwen v. Guar. Mut. Life Co., 214 F.3d 1041, 1046 (9th Cir. 2000). And we have affirmed that in “a ‘straightforward’ ADA case with boilerplate pleadings, minimal legal complexity, and little in the way of difficult fact discovery,” a reduction in fees can be justified, particularly when the case involves a “serial” plaintiff and a “lack of meaningful opposition” by the defendant. Shayler v. 1310 PCH, LLC, 51 F.4th 1015, 1017, 1021 (9th Cir. 2022).

The district court’s concerns with Price’s lawyering and the quality of the fee petition may appropriately factor into any fee award determination. But because the district court did not reach what a reasonable fee award would be, we remand for the court to address that issue." 

Nice finish.

People v. Sacco (Cal. Ct. App. - July 8, 2026)

"It is ordered that the opinion filed herein on June 4, 2026 be modified as follows: on page 9 in the last paragraph, second sentence delete 'witness' and replace with 'victim'."

Yep. Those are indeed different.

People v. Garner (Cal. Ct. App. - July 8, 2026)

This opinion certainly meets the criteria for (admittedly belated) publication.

In 2002, a then-15 years old gets convicted of (alongside his 18-year old accomplice) "robb[ing] the victim and her boyfriend, kidnapp[ing] the victim at gunpoint, and t[aking] turns raping her." He gets sentenced to 50 years in prison.

In 2024, the defendant (Jarvis Garner) petitions to be resentenced on the ground that his 50-year sentence is equivalent to life without parole (LWOP) since "the average age of death for a California inmate is 54 years" and, in any event, the average life expectancy of a Black Californian is 74.6 years. So, he says, his sentence is functionally equivalent to life in prison forever.

The California Attorney General . . . agrees.

Even though the trial court denied the petition, on appeal, the California Attorney General confesses error and says that, yes, the sentence here equivalent to LWOP.

The Court of Appeal is not particularly thrilled with that concession. It allows the District Attorney of San Joaquin County -- the party that opposed the petition in the trial court -- to appear as amicus curiae and oppose the grant of relief.

The panel ends up agreeing with the San Joaquin DA and rejects the Attorney General's concession.

The sentence is not equivalent to LWOP, the Court of Appeal holds, because (1) the panel refuses to accept the statistical evidence since the trial court didn't make a factual finding about it (weak sauce, in my view, but perhaps doctrinally accurate), and (2) even if all that's true, under current law, Mr. Garner is eligible for a parole hearing after 15 years in prison, so it's not LWOP, since he has a chance to potentially get out.

Most interesting to me is the fact that the California Attorney General conceded the point. (Second most interesting is that the Court of Appeal rejects that concession.) The concession may tell you something about the general approach of the current California Attorney General (Rob Bonta) -- one with which different people might stridently agree or disagree.

PWGG v. Bonta (9th Cir. - July 6, 2026)

Oops.

Doe v. Marysville Joint USD (Cal. Supreme Ct. - July 2, 2026)

I wish I could recommend an opinion today that was profoundly worth general reading, but no such luck (at least yet).

In the meantime, if you want to read something extremely erudite -- yet exhaustively boring -- here's an intricate civil procedure opinion by Justice Evans that should have you riveted. So long as you are hugely fascinated by the intersection of federalism and the Supreme Court's collateral estoppel jurisprudence as applied to the ostensibly procedural federal two-dismissal rule.

Engrossing indeed.

People v. Powell (Cal. Ct. App. - June 30, 2026)

There's good news for Quindale Powell in this opinion. Though admittedly not much.

In 2008, he's sentenced to 50 years to life for murder. In 2024, he files a motion in the trial court that says that his sentence contains mistakes. The trial court agrees in part, and gives Mr. Powell . . . two more days of custody credit.

That's something, I guess. But definitely not much.

But Mr. Powell then appeals, claiming that because the trial court modified the sentence, it should have granted him a full resentencing -- one that included all of the many sentencing changes that have taken place in California since he was originally sentenced in 2008. The Attorney General disagrees, and says that the trial court didn't have jurisdiction to do anything at all.

The Court of Appeal disagrees with both sides, and holds that the trial court did have jurisdiction to correct the miscalculated pretrial custody credits, but that's it, and was not required to (and could not) engage in a full resentencing.

And then the Court of Appeal holds that, in fact, Mr. Powell was entitled to three, rather than two, additional days of custody credits. So amends his sentence accordingly.

That counts as a win, I guess?