On automatic appeal, the California Supreme Court unanimously affirms the convictions and death sentence of Cary Stayner for the 1999 Cedar Lodge murders of Carole Sund, her daughter Juli, and Silvina Pelosso. Justice Evans concurred and dissented in part.
California Supreme Court reaffirms the constitutional right to pretrial release, requiring prosecutors to prove the necessity of detention by clear and convincing evidence and forbidding boilerplate denial-of-bail orders.
California Supreme Court holds that gang-enhancement and vicarious firearm-use findings cannot substitute for proof of personal malice in Senate Bill 1437 resentencing hearings, opening the door to new resentencing for aiders and abettors of gang-related killings.
The California Supreme Court holds that juvenile courts cannot terminate a parent’s rights based solely on a finding that the children are likely to be adopted, and that the mother’s trial counsel here was constitutionally ineffective for failing to assert her statutory right to reunification services.
The California Supreme Court holds that courts must independently review whether the Coastal Commission has appellate jurisdiction over a local permit decision and that the Commission cannot exercise that jurisdiction merely because a site allows multiple principal uses.
The California Supreme Court affirms the convictions and Bertsch’s death sentence in this 1985 kidnap-rape-murder case but reverses Hronis’s death sentence because of post-trial changes in the law governing a defendant’s mental competency to represent himself.
The California Supreme Court reverses Omar Deen’s capital conviction and death sentence because the trial court failed to adequately examine whether a juror who had a personal connection to the murdered police chief harbored actual bias.
The California Supreme Court holds that assault is not a lesser included offense of resisting an officer by force or violence under Penal Code section 69, because resistance does not require the present ability to inflict harm.
The California Supreme Court clarifies that an unreadably small or blurry contract goes to procedural unconscionability, not substantive unconscionability — but illegibility triggers heightened scrutiny of the underlying terms for unfairness.
The California Supreme Court holds that a small amount of loose marijuana scattered on a car floor is not an open container under state law and does not give police probable cause to search the vehicle.