California Appellate Report

I like this case . For so many different reasons. On the merits, even though I initially thought the lack of a jury unanimity instruction wa...

It's two days after Christmas. Your wife has said she wants a divorce. You've tried to reconcile, but over dinner at your place, she...

Imagine that you're Venetia K. Carpenter-Asui . Happily practicing law in Honolulu. Nice life, right? Maybe, in truth, you're not su...

I've got a game for you. You've got five guesses as to the author of this dissent . Which begins as follows: "The majority ho...

I'm sure this one's going to get a lot of press. So I won't talk about it much. No need to spill a lot of ink -- okay, virtual...

I mentioned this opinion earlier this month, in a post that was incredibly short and yet perhaps the one with the most interest ever to a ...

Sometimes when you win, you only think you win. The rotund woman needs to finish her aria. And you need to cash the check. Otherwise, th...

Wait a minute. Let me get this straight. You (1) are mentally ill, (2) are a methamphetamine addict, and (3) deliberately and repeatedly pl...

There may -- perhaps -- be good test cases in which you might argue that a state prohibition against incest violates the Due Process Clause....

This is a (somewhat) fact-specific opinion . So ordinarily I wouldn't mention it. Even though it does concern a somewhat important issue...

Two points. One on style, and one on the merits. First, even before I looked at either the rendering court or author, I totally knew who p...

The Ninth Circuit, California appellate courts, and I are all back today after a long -- and well-deserved -- break. And a nice way to retu...

Here's a very nice and tight opinion by Judge Gould. It's crisp. It's clean. It's succinct without being conclusory. It...

This is amongst the plethora of reasons why it's so nice to read an opinion by Justice Bedsworth . Because he adds thoughts like these,...

I always thought that those " X-Ray Specs " you saw advertised on the back of comic books were fake. But as technology marches for...

Yep. Seems like the defendants here did indeed have an objectively reasonable -- albeit erroneous -- basis for removal. So shouldn't ...

Ninth Circuit ( on May 8th ): "Hey, this is a tough state law issue. Help us out on it, California Supreme Court. Here's our quest...

Want to see how you can spend nearly thirty years in state habeas proceedings in a death penalty case? With another decade or so to go bef...

This is a very good opinion by Judge Callahan. Well-written. Well-argued. Tight. Persuasive. Complete. It also concerns an interesting...

Sometimes I don't especially relish my job. Or, more accurately, my self-assigned mission to read every single one of the opinions publ...