OVERVIEW Ordinarily a court year-in-review article overviews significant cases and any changes in the court’s personnel. Because the California Supreme Court is currently enduring its longest-ever seat vacancy — over thirteen months and counting — we evaluated the impact pro tem justices are having on the court’s voting record. We draw several conclusions: There is a voting record distinction between the senior justices and the justices appointed by Governor Brown; The pro tem justices do not vote in lockstep with the Chief Justice or the majority; Which governor appointed a pro tem justice does not correlate with pro tem voting;...

Overview Proposition 9 (commonly referred to as Three Californias) was a proposed initiative to divide California into three smaller states.[1] The initiative received enough signatures to go on the ballot in November 2018. But in a ruling on a pre-election challenge the California Supreme Court ordered the Secretary of State to remove Proposition 9 from the ballot.[2] Proposition 9 had several flaws that likely would have doomed it in a post-election challenge.[3] But this was a pre-election attack, and courts ordinarily are reluctant to prevent measures from going on the ballot. The court’s order removing Proposition 9 from the ballot...

Overview The California Supreme Court’s recent opinion in People v. Buza (S223698) decided the constitutionality of Proposition 69 (the 2004 “DNA Fingerprint, Unsolved Crime and Innocence Protection Act”) which requires law enforcement officials to collect DNA samples from all persons arrested for a felony offense.[1] The case is significant for both privacy rights and the law of search and seizure. In a sharply divided 4–3 decision the court upheld the act under both the federal and state constitutions. In its decision the California Supreme Court missed a rare opportunity to reassert the independence of the California constitution’s search and seizure...

Overview The voters delivered a mixed message regarding judicial independence in the June 2018 primary election. The phalanx of coordinated challengers to four sitting San Francisco Superior Court judges were soundly defeated, but Santa Clara Superior Court Judge Aaron Persky was recalled by a large margin. Those ballot box contests were examples of the conflicting public policy values of judicial independence and public confidence. Today we examine that conflict in the judicial discipline context. The competing policy concerns The value-set tradeoff in the judicial discipline context is between judicial independence and public confidence. “An impartial and independent judiciary is indispensable...

Introduction Article XII, section 7 of California’s constitution provides: “A transportation company may not grant free passes or discounts to anyone holding an office in this State; and the acceptance of a pass or discount by a public officer, other than a Public Utilities Commissioner, shall work a forfeiture of that office.”[1] We conclude that this section should not be taken literally: Article XII, section 7 does not mean that a public official who accepts free or discounted transportation automatically forfeits their office. The section’s history suggests that it was never so intended, and forfeiture of office is a disfavored...

Constitutionally Suspect Special Property Tax Exemptions by David and Michael Belcher Overview This article outlines the history of specific property tax exemptions in the California constitution, explores the unconstitutionality of such provisions, and considers why these provisions remain in the state constitution. Non-profit colleges in California have been exempt from paying property taxes since Proposition 4 passed in 1914. Previously four institutions—Stanford University, the California School of Mechanical Arts, the California Academy of Sciences, and Cogswell Polytechnical College—were covered by specific constitutional amendments that exempted them from paying property taxes.[1] Although those provisions granted the institutions “special privileges” contrary to...