At its conference yesterday, the Supreme Court agreed to decide who has 
standing to enforce a conflict-of-interest statute. In San Diegans for Open Government v. Public Facilities Financing Authority of the City of San Diego, the Court of Appeal held in a published opinion that taxpayers have standing to challenge on conflict grounds the issuance of bonds to refinance the San Diego Padres’ stadium. The appellate court recognized that other similar cases “have reached somewhat conflicting conclusions.” This is the second grant of review this month in a baseball-related case.
[January 26 update: the issue in the San Diegans case, as summarized by court staff, is “Do non-party taxpayers have direct standing to bring an action to challenge the validity of a public entity transaction for an alleged violation of the conflict of interest provisions of Government Code section 1090?”]
In other actions at the conference:
- Differing from their colleagues, Justices Goodwin Liu and Leondra Kruger recorded votes to grant review in a criminal case where the Court of Appeal held in a published opinion that (*quadruple negative alert*), although jurors had discussed the defendant’s failure to testify, there was no misconduct “because the trial court did not instruct the jury not to consider [the defendant’s] decision not to testify.”
- In other criminal matters, the court issued five grant-and-hold orders and five grant-and-transfer orders.
- In one civil case, the court acceded to the Court of Appeal’s request to grant review on its own motion and transfer the case back. The Court of Appeal had lost jurisdiction to rule on a motion to vacate the dismissal of the appeal. The Supreme Court is usually accommodating under such circumstances.