WOODLAND, Calif. — For years, defense attorneys in Yolo County have argued that prosecutors have used California’s judicial disqualification statute not simply to address concerns about bias in individual cases, but to retaliate against judges who issue rulings unfavorable to the District Attorney’s Office.
Last month, California’s highest court gave those concerns unprecedented recognition.
In a May 28 decision in J.O. v. Superior Court, the California Supreme Court specifically cited Yolo County as an example of the dangers posed by blanket judicial challenges under Code of Civil Procedure section 170.6, referencing the prosecution’s use of the statute to remove the county’s only Hispanic judge from hearing felony criminal cases.
The ruling represents a significant shift in California law. The court held that judges may now examine allegations that parties are abusing section 170.6 through bad-faith, blanket disqualification motions designed to remove judges from entire categories of cases.
For Yolo County observers, however, the decision validates concerns that have been raised for years.
Defense attorneys have long contended that the Yolo County District Attorney’s Office has employed section 170.6 strategically against judges whose rulings prosecutors viewed as unfavorable. The practice, critics argued, undermined judicial independence and allowed the prosecution to exert influence over who heard felony matters.
Those allegations reached the California Supreme Court.
In a footnote accompanying its discussion of the discriminatory potential of blanket judicial challenges, the court wrote:
“In Yolo County, prosecutors blanket challenged the only Hispanic judge in the county and disqualified her from hearing felony criminal cases. Defense attorneys raised an equal protection challenge to the 170.6 disqualifications, but the Presiding Judge was forced to deny it without any record of intentional discrimination.”
The opinion did not identify the judge by name.
But the Supreme Court’s acknowledgment marks the first time California’s highest court has expressly referenced the Yolo County controversy in a published opinion.
The decision arose from a separate dispute in San Joaquin County involving allegations that county counsel filed more than 300 section 170.6 challenges against Judge Erin E. Guy Castillo after she admonished a deputy county counsel attorney for improper conduct.
According to the opinion, the challenges allegedly resulted in Judge Guy Castillo’s reassignment from handling conservatorship matters.
The court emphasized that it was not deciding whether those allegations were true.
Still, it concluded that courts can no longer remain powerless when confronted with claims that litigants are using section 170.6 to retaliate against judges or reshape court assignments.
Writing for a unanimous court, Justice Joshua Groban observed that the dangers associated with blanket challenges extend far beyond administrative inconvenience.
“If section 170.6 can be abused in a blanket fashion for reasons other than a good faith belief in a judge’s prejudice in a particular case,” Groban wrote, “i.e., for purposes of ‘judge-shopping,’ to delay proceedings, to disqualify a judge based on his or her views on the law or on the exercise of judicial discretion or his or her personality traits …, to ‘intimidate, punish, and/or silence’ a judge for an adverse ruling and warn other judges not to rule similarly …, or, worse yet, on the basis of a racial or other group bias …, then such use of section 170.6 can ‘materially impair’ … the ‘core judicial function “to ensure the orderly and effective administration of justice.”‘”
The reference to judges being punished for adverse rulings echoed arguments frequently raised by critics of the practice in Yolo County.
Until now, however, courts had little ability to intervene.
The Supreme Court’s earlier decision in Solberg v. Superior Court, decided in 1977, upheld the constitutionality of section 170.6 even in the face of allegations that prosecutors were filing blanket challenges against judges based on dissatisfaction with their rulings.
Under Solberg, courts generally had to accept properly filed section 170.6 challenges at face value and could not inquire into whether the stated claim of prejudice was genuine.
The J.O. court concluded that approach is no longer tenable.
“We now agree with Justice Tobriner’s ultimate conclusion that we are not powerless to act in the face of such an assault on the judiciary,” the court wrote. “To the contrary, our constitutional structure requires us to act.”
The justices pointed to dramatic changes in California’s judicial system over the past five decades.
They noted increased caseloads, persistent judicial shortages, the growth of specialty courts, and sweeping legal reforms requiring judges with increasingly specialized knowledge.
Under those circumstances, allowing parties to systematically remove judges from assignments threatens the judiciary’s ability to manage its own affairs.
The court noted that concerns over blanket challenges have intensified statewide.
According to the opinion, the California Judges Association argued that abuses of section 170.6 are “pervasive” and have created a “constitutional crisis.”
The court further cited proposals from the Committee on Revision of the Penal Code calling for legislative reform.
Committee staff concluded that blanket challenges create several harmful consequences, including the “[u]surpation of the presiding judge’s statutory authority to make assignments” and the “[d]egradation of judicial independence.”
The opinion also observed that California now stands “in a shrinking minority of states” that continue to permit blanket judicial challenges.
The court cited decisions from Arizona, Illinois and Minnesota that restricted similar practices after finding they threatened judicial independence.
In addressing the Yolo County example, the justices specifically tied the issue to broader constitutional concerns involving equal protection and racial discrimination.
“Few would accept, for example, that Solberg’s logic forecloses judicial inquiry into a claim that the prosecution unconstitutionally lodged a section 170.6 challenge on the basis of the judge’s race,” Groban wrote.
The Yolo County footnote followed immediately.
The court’s recognition of those allegations underscores a reality defense attorneys have repeatedly described: because courts lacked authority to investigate motives behind section 170.6 motions, even claims involving racial targeting could proceed without factual inquiry.
As the Supreme Court noted, the equal protection challenge in Yolo County ultimately failed because existing precedent prevented the creation of a record regarding discriminatory intent.
That framework has now changed.
Under the new standard announced in J.O., parties may object to section 170.6 motions and attempt to establish a prima facie showing that the challenges are part of a bad-faith blanket effort against a judge.
If that showing is made, courts may look beyond the affidavit asserting prejudice and inquire into whether the challenge is legitimate.
The court stressed that it was not invalidating section 170.6 itself.
Rather, it rejected the notion that blanket abuses of the statute are immune from judicial scrutiny.
“As we have said before, ‘We cannot permit a device intended for spare and protective use to be converted into a weapon of offense . . . .'” the court wrote.
For Yolo County, where concerns over prosecutorial retaliation through section 170.6 have persisted for years, the Supreme Court’s decision represents more than an abstract legal development.
It constitutes an acknowledgment from the state’s highest court that the allegations raised by defense attorneys deserved to be taken seriously.
And for the first time, California courts have been given the authority to ask whether blanket judicial challenges reflect legitimate concerns about prejudice—or an effort to punish judges whose rulings prosecutors do not like.
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Hmmm. Reisig resigned on May 6. Supreme Court decision came out on May 28 and maybe it was in draft stage for some time. Or maybe it’s just a coincidence. Yeah, that’s it, a coincidence.