Judiciary of California
The Judiciary of California or the Judicial Branch of California is defined under the California Constitution as holding the judicial power of the state of California which is vested in the Supreme Court, the Courts of Appeal and the Superior Courts. The judiciary has a hierarchical structure with the California Supreme Court at the top, California Courts of Appeal as the primary appellate courts, and the California Superior Courts as the primary trial courts.
The policymaking body of the California courts is the Judicial Council and its staff.
The judicial system of California is the largest in the United States that is fully staffed by professional law-trained judges. In fiscal year 2020-21, the state judiciary's 2,000 judicial officers and 18,000 judicial branch employees processed approximately 4.4 million cases. In comparison, the federal judicial system has only about 870 judges. Although New York and Texas each technically have more judicial officers than California, most of them are not attorneys and have no formal legal training.
Courts
The judiciary has a hierarchical structure with the Supreme Court at the apex, courts of appeal as the primary appellate courts, and the superior courts as the primary trial courts.Supreme Court
The Supreme Court of California is headquartered in San Francisco, with branch offices in Los Angeles and Sacramento. It hears oral arguments each year in all three locations. It consists of the Chief Justice of California and six Associate Justices.The Court has original jurisdiction in a variety of cases, including habeas corpus proceedings, and has the authority to review all the decisions of the California courts of appeal, as well as an automatic appeal for cases where the death penalty has been issued by the trial court.
The Court deals with about 8,800 cases per year, although review is discretionary in most cases, and it dismisses the vast majority of petitions without comment. It hears arguments and drafts full opinions for about 100 to 120 cases each year, of which about 20 are automatic death penalty appeals.
The Court also supervises California lawyers through the State Bar Court of California.
Courts of appeal
The California courts of appeal are the intermediate appellate courts. The state is geographically divided into six appellate districts, Notably, all published California appellate decisions are binding on all superior courts, regardless of appellate district. The First Appellate District sits in San Francisco, the Second District in Los Angeles, the Third District in Sacramento, the Fourth District in San Diego, the Fifth District in Fresno, and the Sixth District in San Jose. The districts are further divided into 19 divisions sitting throughout the state at 9 locations, and there are 105 justices serving on the Courts.Unlike the state supreme court, the courts of appeal have mandatory review jurisdiction under the informal legal tradition in common law countries that all litigants are entitled to at least one appeal. In practice, this works out to about 16,000 appeals per year, resulting in 12,000 opinions.
Under the common law, judicial opinions themselves have legal effect through the rule of stare decisis. But because of their crushing caseloads, the courts of appeal are permitted to take the shortcut of selecting only the best opinions for publication. This way, they can draft opinions fast and quickly dispose of the vast majority of cases, without worrying that they are accidentally making bad law. About 7% of their opinions are ultimately selected for publication and become part of California law.
In California, the power of the intermediate courts of appeal over the superior courts is quite different from the power of the courts of appeals of the federal government over the federal district courts. The first Court of Appeal to rule on a new legal issue will bind all lower superior courts statewide. However, litigants in other appellate districts may still appeal a superior court's adverse ruling to their own Court of Appeal, which has the power to fashion a different rule. When such a conflict arises, all superior courts have the discretion to choose which rule they like until the California Supreme Court grants review and creates a single rule that binds all courts statewide. However, where a superior court lies within one of the appellate districts actually involved in such a conflict, it will usually follow the rule of its own Court of Appeal.
Superior Courts
The California Superior Courts are the superior courts with the general jurisdiction to hear and decide any civil or criminal action which is not specially designated to be heard in some other court or before a governmental agency, such as workers' compensation. As mandated by the California Constitution, each of the 58 counties in California has a superior court with one or more judges.Appellate divisions
The superior courts have appellate divisions which hear appeals from decisions of other superior court judges who heard and decided relatively minor cases that previously would have been heard in inferior courts, such as infractions, misdemeanors, and "limited civil" actions.Administration
The Judicial Council of California is the rule-making arm of the judiciary of California. Pursuant to this role, they have adopted the California Rules of Court as their regulations. The Judicial Council's staff is responsible for implementing council policies. In addition, every court may make local rules for its own government and the government of its officers.Pursuant to common law tradition, the courts of California have developed a large body of case law through the decisions of the Supreme Court and the courts of appeal, which are published by the California Reporter of Decisions in the California Reports and California Appellate Reports, respectively. The appellate divisions of the superior courts occasionally certify opinions for publication, which appear in the California Appellate Reports Supplement. There is also a separate reporter called the California Unreported Cases published independently starting in 1913 containing minor opinions that should have been published but simply were not, when the state supreme court was extremely overloaded with cases during its first half-century.
California Court Case Management System
Court business is conducted using the California Court Case Management System and other local court implementations.In 2002, the California Administrative Office of the Courts started the Second-Generation Electronic Filing Specification project. After a $200,000 consultant's report declared the project ready for a final push, the Judicial Council of California scrapped the program in 2012 after $500 million in costs. The 2GEFS Court Filing 2.0 specification was based on experiences with the Legal XML Court Filing 1.0. On December 10, 2012, it was announced that the San Luis Obispo County Superior Court would use the Odyssey court case management system from Tyler Technologies.
As of 2014, five Superior Courts—in Orange, Sacramento, San Diego, San Joaquin, and Ventura Counties—use CCMS version 3 to process civil cases. This represents approximately 25 percent of the civil case volume in California. Fresno is the only Superior Court still using version 2 of CCMS. In August 2013, the Judicial Council approved funding for a system that will replace CCMS version 2 in Fresno.
Pursuant to California Rule of Court 2.506 and Government Code Section 68150, courts may impose fees for the costs of providing access to its electronic records.
Several superior courts do so, including Alameda, Los Angeles, Riverside, Sacramento, and San Diego, and the fees have been criticized by Thomas Peele as exorbitant and extraordinarily high, with the Alameda County Superior Court fees being the subject of a MoveOn.org petition.
Personnel
Judges
Judicial Selection Process
California uses a modified Missouri Plan method of appointing judges, in which the Governor's office conducts an investigation of applicants in order to submit a list of potential applicants to the Judicial Nominees Evaluation Commission for a formal vetting process that is not made public. A detailed report is submitted to the governor. The governor makes his nominations and sends his nominees to be reviewed by the Commission on Judicial Appointments which may confirm the nominee at which point they are officially appointed to the bench for a 12 year term.Justices are elected for 12 year terms at the same time as the Governor. When a judge's term is expiring another judge from a different court can file a declaration of candidacy to succeed to the office presently held by the judge.
Most of California's roughly 1,600 superior court judges are first appointed by the governor of California. A person is eligible to be a judge only if the person has been a member of the California State Bar or served as a judge of a court of record in this State for 10 years immediately preceding selection.