The Supreme Court of California is the highest and final court of appeals in the courts of the U.S. state of California. It is headquartered in San Francisco at the Earl Warren Building, but it regularly holds sessions in Los Angeles and Sacramento. Its decisions are binding on all other California state courts. Since 1850, the court has issued many influential decisions in a variety of areas including torts, property, civil and constitutional rights, and criminal law.
Rose Elizabeth Bird was the 25th Chief Justice of the California Supreme Court. She was the first female law clerk of the Nevada Supreme Court, the first female deputy public defender in Santa Clara County, the first woman to serve in the California State Cabinet, and the first female Chief Justice of California.
Josephine "Joyce" Luther Kennard is a Dutch-American judge and former Associate Justice of the Supreme Court of California. Appointed by Governor George Deukmejian in 1989, she was the longest-serving justice sitting on the Court at the time of her 2014 retirement, having been retained by California's voters three times—first to fill the unexpired term in 1990, followed by second and third consecutive twelve-year terms in 1994 and 2006.
Morey Stanley Mosk was an American jurist, politician, and attorney. He served as Associate Justice of the California Supreme Court for 37 years (1964–2001), the longest tenure in that court's history.
Carol Ann Corrigan is an associate justice of the California Supreme Court. She is a former prosecutor.
Carlos Roberto Moreno is an American jurist who is the former United States Ambassador to Belize, serving from June 24, 2014 to January 20, 2017. Previously, he served as a judge of the United States District Court for the Central District of California from February 4, 1998, to October 18, 2001, and as an associate justice of the Supreme Court of California from October 18, 2001, to February 28, 2011. Following his retirement from the bench, Moreno was counsel with Irell & Manella from 2011 to 2013. He has been a self-employed JAMS arbitrator since returning from Belize in 2017.
Munger, Tolles, & Olson LLP (MTO) is an American law firm with offices in Los Angeles, San Francisco, and Washington D.C.. The firm represents clients in industries such as entertainment, technology, energy and healthcare.
Kathryn Jocelyn Mickle Werdegar is a former Associate Justice of the Supreme Court of California, serving from June 3, 1994, to August 31, 2017.
Janice Rogers Brown is an American jurist. She served as a United States circuit judge of the United States Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit from 2005 to 2017 and before that, Associate Justice of the California Supreme Court from 1996 to 2005. She is a member of the Federalist Society and frequently features at events hosted by the organization.
Ketanji Onyika Brown Jackson is an American lawyer and jurist who is an associate justice of the Supreme Court of the United States. Jackson was nominated to the Supreme Court by President Joe Biden on February 25, 2022, and confirmed by the U.S. Senate and sworn into office that same year. She is the first black woman and the first former federal public defender to serve on the Supreme Court. From 2021 to 2022, Jackson was a United States circuit judge of the United States Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit.
Mariano-Florentino "Tino" Cuéllar is an American scholar, academic leader, public official, jurist, and nonprofit executive currently serving as the 10th president of the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace. He was previously a Justice of the Supreme Court of California, the Stanley Morrison Professor of Law at Stanford University and director of Stanford's Freeman Spogli Institute for International Studies, and an executive branch official in the Clinton and Obama administrations. His publications address problems in American public law, international affairs and international law, artificial intelligence, public health and safety law, and institutions and organizations. He serves on the State Department's Foreign Affairs Policy Board. A member of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences and the National Academy of Sciences Committee on the Social and Ethical Implications of Computing Research, he serves as chair of the board of the William and Flora Hewlett Foundation. He was born in Northern Mexico.
Michelle Taryn Friedland is a United States circuit judge of the United States Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit.
Regents of University of California v. Superior Court of Los Angeles County, 4 Cal. 5th 607, 413 P.3d 656 (2018), was a case in which the Supreme Court of California held that universities owe a duty to protect students from foreseeable violence during curricular activities. In an opinion by Justice Ming Chin, the Court tossed out the 2010 case in which Katherine Rosen, a former UCLA student, sued the university for negligence when another student stabbed her in a chemistry lab. Following this ruling, Rosen can pursue the case again in court.
Elizabeth Barchas Prelogar is an American lawyer who has served as solicitor general of the United States since October 2021. She served as acting solicitor general from January 20, 2021, at the start of the Biden administration, until President Joe Biden sent her nomination to the U.S. Senate on August 11, 2021, when she was prevented from serving while the nomination was before the Senate as a result of the terms of the Federal Vacancies Reform Act of 1998.
With the advice and consent of the United States Senate, the president of the United States appoints the members of the Supreme Court of the United States, which is the highest court of the federal judiciary of the United States. Following his victory in the 2020 presidential election, Democrat Joe Biden took office as president on January 20, 2021. During the 2020 Democratic primary campaign, Biden pledged to appoint a Black woman to the Supreme Court, although unlike his opponent, Donald Trump, Biden did not release a specific list of potential nominees during the 2020 general election campaign.
Candace Rae Jackson-Akiwumi is an American attorney who has served as a United States circuit judge of the United States Court of Appeals for the Seventh Circuit since July 2021. She was previously a staff attorney at the federal defender program in the Northern District of Illinois from 2010 to 2020 and a partner at Zuckerman Spaeder in Washington, D.C., from 2020 to 2021.
Maame Ewusi-Mensah Frimpong is an American attorney serving as a United States district judge of the United States District Court for the Central District of California. She previously served as a judge of the Los Angeles County Superior Court from 2015 to 2022.
Holly Aiyisha Thomas is an American attorney serving as a United States circuit judge of the United States Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit. She previously served as a judge of the Los Angeles County Superior Court from 2018 to 2022.
On February 25, 2022, President Joe Biden announced that he would nominate Ketanji Brown Jackson to the position of associate justice of the Supreme Court of the United States to fill the vacancy by Stephen Breyer, who announced his retirement on January 27, 2022, at the age of 83. Jackson, a former law clerk of Breyer, was a judge on the United States Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit, having been appointed by Biden in 2021. Jackson is the first Black woman in U.S. history to be nominated to serve on the U.S. Supreme Court.
