9/6/09 All rise, the CA Supreme Court is now in session...

On Wednesday, I took advantage of the free field trip up to the California State Supreme Court. This opportunity was paid for by the generous donations of the alumni, faculty, and friends of the political science department. To them, I’d like to say, “thank you for your gifts. This field trip was a fascinating experience.”

The State Supreme Court is located in San Francisco next to city hall. Obviously, we went up to hear oral arguments regarding three cases. On the way up, Professor Brent ‘held class’ by discussing the three cases we were going to hear. Case one dealt with issues of discrimination and harassment. Case two involved issues of attorney–client privilege. The issues in case three involved labor compensation and contracts. He told us to keep an eye on Justice Kennard because she is usually very vocal during oral arguments; she likes to grill the attorneys on both sides of a case. He also mentioned that we would see two cases where some of the justices had to recuse themselves.

For anyone who wants to visit the court for oral arguments, I offer this hint. Three of us got lost in the building because we took the wrong elevator. As you walk into the building from the visitors’ entrance, you will enter a small lobby and go through security. After passing through security and while you’re in the lobby, the correct elevators will be on the left hand wall and appear to have dark goldish–bronze colored doors; there are two of them. If you walk through the open ‘hallway’, for lack of a better word, you have gone too far. When in the correct elevator, you need to travel to the fourth floor; this is where the court is located. You will again pass through another security checkpoint to hand over all electronics like phones, cameras, IPods, blackberries, computers, etc.

The court is a small, round room. The bench is at the front, while in front of it, there are two desks pushed back–to–back for the petitioner and the respondent. The rest of the room is dedicated to the gallery for the audience to sit and observe. The gallery may hold up to 90 or 100 people.

Each of the lawyers had different styles of presenting their cases. Each seemed to be well prepared. We also heard arguments from ‘friend of the court’ lawyers. The Latin name of these lawyers escapes me right now; it’s amicus something. Justice Kennard lived up to her reputation by firing several questions at each of the lawyers. It was hard to keep up with all of the legal jargon, but I understood the gist of the cases.

Justice Kennard recused herself for case two and a replacement judge was seated. This temporary justice remained quiet and seemed to just take in the experience. In the second case, Justice Corrigan and the attorney for the respondent spent 10–15 minutes discussing attorney–client privilege and how it related to info collected internally by Costco and info collected about Costco by an outside investigating law firm hired by Costco. It was quite confusing, but for a brief second, I understood what Justice Corrigan was trying to explain. The attorney either didn’t understand what she was trying to say or he had a different point that he was trying to make to her.

The third case was as fascinating as the first two. Justices Kennard and Corrigan both recused themselves and again a replacement judge was appointed for Corrigan; the judge who served for the second case in place of Kennard also served for the third case. An employee for Citigroup had 5% of his pre–tax wages funneled into an investment plan. He had to remain with the business for 2 years in order to receive those stocks upon leaving the firm. This employee left before the two years were up and he lost the stock. The employee claims that he was not properly compensated for his work when he left because he was not able to keep his stock and that stock was not converted into cash and paid to him.

This was a complex case involving contracts, labor laws, and state laws. The petitioner attorney was a loud, combative, and aggressive woman. Her argument seemed to be quite disorganized and, to me, confusing. But as Professor Brent pointed out, she made a strong argument by saying that it was ok for Citicorp to do what they were doing; they just had to establish a different procedure for completing the transaction. The respondent attorney really didn’t have much to say and his presentation was only about 15 of the 30 minutes he was given.

After the morning arguments concluded, Chief Justice George stayed in the courtroom for twenty minutes to give an overview of the proceedings and to answer a few of our questions. My question, which he answered, concerned quorum. He explained that at the state level, he has a list of 105 lower court justices and if he needs to fill a seat for a recused judge, he rotates the next name from his list of judges. So the California Supreme Court had no need to operate with a quorum. We left at lunchtime and did not see the afternoon oral arguments.

Trivia: Our Supreme Court Justices are: Ronald George, Joyce Kennard, Marvin Baxter, Kathryn Werdegar, Ming Chin, Carlos Moreno, and Carol Corrigan. Six of them were appointed by Republican governors and one by a Democrat. This is a diverse court: there are four men and three women and there is one Asian and one Hispanic.

My vocabulary words are:
germane: relevant (Webster's American pocket dictionary)
espoused: to adopt or support (Webster's American pocket dictionary)