Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals, Constitutional Law, Criminal Law
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July 23, 2026
The Ninth Circuit held that GPS history and on-scene facts gave officers probable cause to search a supervisee’s trailer and pickup under his warrantless-search condition.
California Supreme Court, Civil Procedure, Constitutional Law, Healthcare Law
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July 23, 2026
The California Supreme Court held that an almost year-long delay in an LPS conservatorship trial violated due process, though the error was harmless on this record.
Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals, Constitutional Law, Criminal Law, Litigation
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July 21, 2026
The Ninth Circuit ordered a new trial because the district court delayed and inadequately investigated an alternate juror who had expressly prejudged the defense.
4th District Court of Appeal, Civil Procedure, Constitutional Law, Litigation
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July 20, 2026
California's ALPR statute requires a plaintiff to show actual harm caused by a violation; a technical violation and subjective privacy concern are not enough.
Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals, Constitutional Law, Criminal Law
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July 17, 2026
A divided Ninth Circuit holds that police executing a computer search warrant must stop searching when evidence they discover negates the probable cause underlying the warrant—and that the good-faith exception does not save evidence found after probable cause dissolves.
Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals, Constitutional Law, Criminal Law
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July 16, 2026
The Ninth Circuit denied panel rehearing and rehearing en banc in a Second Amendment challenge to California's switchblade knife regulations, leaving intact a panel ruling that California's ban on the concealed carry of switchblade knives survives a facial constitutional challenge under the Bruen framework.
2nd District Court of Appeal, Constitutional Law, Criminal Law
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July 15, 2026
California's Second District Court of Appeal affirmed that placing child-luring offenders in the lifetime sex offender registration tier does not violate equal protection, because the Legislature could rationally find that the predatory, premeditated nature of luring crimes signals a higher risk of recidivism than other sex offenses.
2nd District Court of Appeal, Constitutional Law, Criminal Law
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July 13, 2026
The Second District Court of Appeal upholds California’s ban on carrying concealed dirks and daggers as facially constitutional under the Supreme Court’s Bruen text-and-history test, pointing to a robust historical tradition of concealed-weapons prohibitions.
Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals, Administrative Law, Banking & Finance, Constitutional Law
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July 13, 2026
The Ninth Circuit affirms a preliminary injunction blocking FinCEN’s “Border GTO” — which required money services businesses in 30 southwest border ZIP codes to file cash-transaction reports for amounts as low as $200 — finding the order was likely a rule requiring notice-and-comment rulemaking and that it was adopted in an arbitrary and capricious manner.
2nd District Court of Appeal, Constitutional Law, Litigation, Real Estate Law
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July 9, 2026
California's Second District Court of Appeal holds that a percentage-of-gross-income rent clause in a public port district's commercial lease is neither a voter-approval tax under Proposition 26 nor an unconstitutional regulation of alcohol sales.
3rd District Court of Appeal, Constitutional Law, Criminal Law
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July 8, 2026
The Third District held that a juvenile offender's 50-year determinate sentence is not the functional equivalent of life without parole — and therefore does not qualify for resentencing under Penal Code section 1170(d)(1) — because section 3051 gave him a meaningful parole opportunity during his 15th year of incarceration.
1st District Court of Appeal, Administrative Law, Constitutional Law, Real Estate Law
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July 7, 2026
The First District holds that Corporations Code section 14300's mandatory cancellation of a public entity's appurtenant water company shares does not violate the California Constitution's limited exception permitting public entities to hold such shares.
4th District Court of Appeal, Constitutional Law, Labor & Employment Law, Litigation
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July 6, 2026
The Fourth District holds that an employer's statutory right to seek a workplace violence restraining order on behalf of its employees cannot be signed away in a separation agreement, and strikes as a First Amendment violation a provision barring an elected board member from discussing the restraining order at public meetings.
2nd District Court of Appeal, Constitutional Law, Criminal Law
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July 2, 2026
The Second District Court of Appeal grants habeas corpus and vacates a second-degree murder conviction after finding the prosecution allowed false eyewitness testimony to stand uncorrected — and defense counsel failed to cross-examine the witnesses with their own prior contradictory police statements — in a gang-related retrial.
Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals, Administrative Law, Constitutional Law, Environmental Law
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July 2, 2026
The Ninth Circuit ruled 2-1 that the federal Energy Policy and Conservation Act (EPCA) does not preempt SCAQMD's Rule 1146.2, which phases out gas-fired water heaters and boilers across Southern California to achieve compliance with federal ozone standards — dealing a major setback to appliance manufacturers challenging the ban.
4th District Court of Appeal, Constitutional Law, Criminal Law, Litigation
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July 1, 2026
The Fourth District reversed a DUI conviction, holding that a warrantless blood draw from a sedated hospital patient was unconstitutional where the arresting officer faced no competing investigative demands and never considered seeking a warrant.
1st District Court of Appeal, Constitutional Law, Criminal Law
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June 30, 2026
The First District affirms dismissal of three state charges against David DePape — including attempted murder — under California's statutory double jeopardy protection, holding that mental-state elements cannot save a state charge when the required physical act was already proved in a prior federal conviction.
4th District Court of Appeal, Constitutional Law, Criminal Law
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June 26, 2026
The Fourth District holds that Penal Code § 1172.75(d)(4) permits a resentencing court to reimpose an originally imposed upper term without new jury findings or stipulations, even if the court considers different aggravating factors.
4th District Court of Appeal, Constitutional Law, Criminal Law
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June 25, 2026
The Fourth District holds that officers who reasonably but mistakenly identified a juvenile as a murder-warrant fugitive had probable cause to arrest him, and that after realizing the mistake they lawfully searched him incident to a resisting-arrest charge, making the discovered firearm admissible.
Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals, Constitutional Law, Labor & Employment Law
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June 24, 2026
The Ninth Circuit reverses summary judgment for Alaska Airlines and the AFA flight attendants' union, holding that two Christian flight attendants fired after posting about the Equality Act raised genuine disputes of material fact on Title VII religious discrimination, and that the Railway Labor Act does not preempt their Oregon and Washington state anti-discrimination claims against the union.
2nd District Court of Appeal, Constitutional Law, Litigation, Tax (non-estate)
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June 22, 2026
The Second Appellate District affirmed summary judgment for the City of Los Angeles, holding that the 5.5% SoCalGas franchise fee — including a 3.5% surcharge billed to customers — is a charge for use of City streets exempt from Proposition 26's voter-approval requirement, and that no independent reasonableness showing is required under the exemption.
Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals, Constitutional Law, Labor & Employment Law
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June 18, 2026
The full Ninth Circuit has agreed to rehear en banc a case about whether states can force religious nonprofits to hire employees who don't share their faith, vacating a panel opinion that had protected a Christian shelter's faith-based hiring practices.
Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals, Administrative Law, Constitutional Law, Labor & Employment Law
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June 17, 2026
The Ninth Circuit vacated a district court injunction that had blocked President Trump's Executive Order 14,251 — which stripped roughly 800,000 federal employees across multiple agencies of collective bargaining rights on national security grounds — holding that the unions failed to show a likelihood of success on their First Amendment retaliation claim.
1st District Court of Appeal, Constitutional Law, Criminal Law
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June 12, 2026
When a SWAT team uses gas, drones, and robots to flush a suspect from his apartment, the resulting arrest is treated as an in-home arrest — but California's First District upheld the conviction anyway because the underlying warrant affidavit, even with false statements excised, still established probable cause.
4th District Court of Appeal, Constitutional Law, Criminal Law
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June 12, 2026
In the first California published decision on investigative genetic genealogy, the Fourth District held that a rapist has no reasonable expectation of privacy in semen left at a crime scene — and that law enforcement's use of that DNA for genealogical database searches to identify him did not constitute a Fourth Amendment search.