J.O. v. Super. Ct.

── J.O. v. Super. Ct. ── Court: California Supreme Court Date: May 28, 2026 Category: General IN THE SUPREME COURT OF CALIFORNIA J.O., Petitioner, v. THE SUPERIOR COURT OF SAN JOAQUIN COUNTY, Respondent; SAN JOAQUIN COUNTY PUBLIC CONSERVATOR, Real Party in Interest. S287285 Third Appellate District C102071 San Joaquin County Superior Court STK-MH-LPSC-2016-0000110 May 28, 2026 Justice Groban authored the opinion of the Court, in which Chief Justice Guerrero and Justices Corrigan, Liu, Kruger, Evans, and Brown* concurred. * Presiding Justice of the Court of Appeal, First Appellate District, Division Four, assigned by the Chief Justice pursuant to article VI, section 6 of the California Constitution.  J.O. v. SUPERIOR COURT S287285 Opinion of the Court by Groban, J. “In order to lay a due foundation for that separate and distinct exercise of the different powers of government, which to a certain extent is admitted on all hands to be essential to the preservation of liberty, it is evident that each department should have a will of its own . . . . [¶] . . . But the great security against a gradual concentration of the several powers in the same department, consists in giving to those who administer each department the necessary constitutional means and personal motives to resist encroachments of the others.” (Madison, The Federalist Papers: No. 51 (Feb. 8, 1788).)1 This case requires us to confront this very principle. Code of Civil Procedure 2 section 170.6 states that any party or attorney can compel the disqualification of a judge simply by signing an affidavit or orally stating under oath that the judge is “prejudiced” against the party, attorney, or their 1 Available at Lillian Goldman Law Library, The Avalon Project, <https://avalon.law.yale.edu/18th_century/fed51.asp#: ~:text=In%20order%20to%20lay%20a,the%20principle%20mus t%20be%20admitted> [as of May 28, 2026]. All Internet citations in this opinion are archived by year, docket number, and case name at <https://courts.ca.gov/opinions/cited-supreme- court-opinions>. 2 All further statutory references are to the Code of Civil Procedure unless otherwise specified. 1  J.O. v. SUPERIOR COURT Opinion of the Court by Groban, J. respective interests. If the motion is timely and properly presented, the disqualification is automatic and a new judge must be assigned without any judicial inquiry into the veracity of the affidavit or oral statement. (See Solberg v. Superior Court (1977) 19 Cal.3d 182, 194 (Solberg).) Since the enactment of section 170.6, reports of its abuse have been well chronicled, including that section 170.6 has been invoked for the improper 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” (Solberg, at p. 194), to “intimidate, punish, and/or silence” a judge for an adverse ruling and warn other judges not to rule similarly (People v. Superior Court (Tejeda) (2016) 1 Cal.App.5th 892, 930 (Tejeda)), or even as a vehicle for racial discrimination (see People v. Williams (1992) 8 Cal.App.4th 688, 706–707 (Williams)). These problems are particularly pronounced when challenges are improperly lodged in a blanket fashion. If, for example, a district attorney’s or public defender’s office engages in the practice of removing a judge from all cases or a substantial portion of cases on a bad-faith basis, or all cases or a substantial portion of cases of a particular type, the office can effectively control the extent to which that judge hears such cases. Such practices can even f