THE CALIFORNIA SUPREME COURT IN JUDICIAL YEAR 2024: THE C.J. GUERRERO ERA IS UNDERWAY

Written by Kirk C. Jenkins

With the pandemic over and California courts once again operating normally, the Judicial Year 2023-2024 represented an opportunity to begin taking the measure of the Justices of the current California Supreme Court. With Chief Justice Patricia Guerrero in her first full Judicial Year in the center seat and Justice Kelli Evans in her first full Judicial Year on the Court, the Court now has 6 of 7 Justices appointed by Democratic governors. The last time the Court was so dominated by appointees of a single party was September 3, 1991 to April 5, 2014, when the Court had 6 appointees of Republican governors.

Appellate filings picked up in Fiscal Year 2023. The Court of Appeal logged 5,904 new civil notices of appeal, an increase of 9.5% over 2022. The Court received 6,665 new criminal notices of appeal, an increase of a whopping 54.2% over the previous year. Only juvenile filings were down, with new notices of appeal off by 5.8%. The Second District led the way as always, accounting for 40% statewide of the new notices of appeal across all categories for the year. The Sixth District was the smallest district, with only 4.4% of the new filings statewide. Things are picking up in the trial courts as well, with total filings in all divisions of the Superior Court statewide up 12.7% for Fiscal Year 2023.

The Supreme Court’s caseload for JY2024 was up slightly, as the Court decided 32 civil cases and 26 criminal matters. Although this represents a small increase over JY2023 (21 civil cases, 34 criminal) and JY2022 (21 civil cases, 28 criminal), it is still a large drop-off from previous years — for example, as recently as JY2017 — when Court of Appeal filings were much higher — the Court’s output was roughly double what it is today.