California Supreme Court

California child welfare agencies must investigate claims of Native American ancestry before separating a family, the California Supreme Court stressed in a new ruling that affects several contested cases.

'An isolated act of harassment may be actionable if it is sufficiently severe,' the California Supreme Court wrote in reviving a racial discrimination lawsuit filed by a Black woman in the San Francisco District Attorney's Office.

Proponents of a ballot measure to limit tax increases claimed the California Supreme Court had political motives in a recent ruling that removed it from the ballot. A careful reading of the decision indicates otherwise.

The California Supreme Court blocked a pending ballot measure that would have made it more difficult to raise taxes, adding another chapter the state's history of writing laws through the ballot.

The state Supreme Court takes a business-backed initiative to make it more difficult to raise taxes off the Nov. 5 ballot. Gov. Newsom and legislative leaders sued to kick it off.

A federal judge in April ordered Alameda County to review more than 30 of its death penalty convictions after evidence emerged suggesting the District Attorney’s Office blocked Black and Jewish people from serving on juries. This week, the California Supreme Court upheld a capital sentence from a trial that had no Black jurors.

A recent Supreme Court ruling could curtail misuse of the California Environmental Quality Act by those who oppose development.

Two pending California Supreme Court cases have again raised the issue of whether there should be restrictions on the use of the initiative process to make new laws.

Contending factions have waged political war over California taxes for nearly a half-century. It could reach a climax under a ballot measure this fall, but opponents are asking the state Supreme Court to remove it from the ballot.

A Los Angeles man convicted of slaying an elderly neighbor in 1989 cannot seek parole under new state laws that were intended to give youth offenders a shot at freedom, the California Supreme Court ruled.