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Manson follower wins, Fr. Serra loses in Cal. courts: Legal News This Week Ending June 2, 2023

Tim Kowal     June 2, 2023

Here are some legal trends and trivia from this week:

  • Justice Jackson, still in first year on SCOTUS, pens solo dissent in labor case Glacier Northwest v. International Brotherhood of Teamsters. First time a first-termer has penned a solo dissent since Justice Thomas in 1991. (Via Adam Feldman)
  • Manson follower Leslie Van Houten, who took part in murders, is entitled to parole after spending more than 50 years behind bars, a California appeals court ruled, reversing Gov. Gavin Newsom’s decision to deny her release. (LA Times)
  • Court of Appeal holds Ventura could get rid of statute of Father Serra, rejecting historical and environmental challenges. (MetNews) (The court may be right. But for the reasons I wrote in an essay a few years ago, “Why did Constantinople get the works? That’s nobody’s business but…”, the city’s decision is unfortunate.)
  • Cal. Supreme Court announces it will hear argument on June 27 on the high-profile, long-pending voting rights case, Pico Neighborhood Association v. City of Santa Monica, involving the issue: “What must a plaintiff prove in order to establish vote dilution under the California Voting Rights Act?” (Via David Ettinger.)
  • Ninth Circuit says order disqualifying all prosecutors in the district is unjustified as an “extreme remedy” where only one AUSA’s conduct was questioned. (MetNews)
  • No right for a criminal defendant to be present at the jury verdict, despite clear constitutional mandate, Court of Appeal holds. (Via Shaun Martin)
  • Cal. Supreme Court scores high in diversity study. (David Ettinger)
Tim Kowal is an appellate specialist certified by the California State Bar Board of Legal Specialization. Tim helps trial attorneys and clients win their cases and avoid error on appeal. He co-hosts the Cal. Appellate Law Podcast at CALpodcast.com, and publishes summaries of cases and appellate tips for trial attorneys. Contact Tim at [email protected] or (949) 676-9989.
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"A judge is a law student who grades his own papers."

— H.L. Mencken

"Moot points have to be settled somehow, once they get thrust upon us. If an assertion cannot be proved, then it must be settled some other way, and nearly all of these ways are unfair to somebody."

—T.H. White, The Once and Future King

"At common law, barratry was 'the offense of frequently exciting and stirring up suits and quarrels' (4 Blackstone, Commentaries 134) and was punished as a misdemeanor."

Rubin v. Green (1993) 4 Cal.4th 1187

"So far as the beginnings of law had theories, the first theory of liability was in terms of a duty to buy off the vengeance of him to whom an injury had been done whether by oneself or by something in one's power. The idea is put strikingly in the Anglo-Saxon legal proverb, 'Buy spear from side or bear it,' that is, buy off the feud or fight it out."

— Roscoe Pound, An Introduction to the Philosophy of Law

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— Will Durant

“It will be of little avail to the people, that the laws are made by men of their own choice, if the laws be so voluminous that they cannot be read, or so incoherent that they cannot be understood; if they be repealed or revised before they are promulgated, or undergo such incessant changes that no man, who knows what the law is today, can guess what it will be tomorrow. Law is defined to be a rule of action; but how can that be a rule, which is little known, and less fixed?”

— James Madison, Federalist 62

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— Sir Thomas More in Robert Bolt's A Man for All Seasons

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— Plato (427-347 B.C.)

"Counsel on the firing line in an actual trial must be prepared for surprises, including requests for amendments of pleading. They cannot ask that a judgment afterwards obtained be set aside merely because their equilibrium was slightly disturbed by an unexpected motion."

Posz v. Burchell (1962) 209 Cal.App.2d 324, 334

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Leviticus

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