California Second District Court of Appeal Retention Guide 2026

Recommendation: YES on retaining each of the 18 Second District justices reviewed below, with moderate confidence for justices with longer appellate records and low confidence for the two newest appointees. The public record reviewed establishes substantial legal and judicial experience across the group and no public Commission on Judicial Performance discipline for any of these 18. It does not establish that each justice is error-free, and the targeted opinion review cannot measure each justice’s overall performance. The strongest contrary public record located is Justice Kenneth Yegan’s dissent in a juvenile case; I read the full opinion and treat its legal and public-safety concerns seriously, but it does not establish misconduct or a pattern of unfitness.

This analysis is part of the Los Angeles County Voter Guide 2026 and is researched under the sherafy.com Civic Outcomes Standard. Voters in Los Angeles, Ventura, Santa Barbara and San Luis Obispo counties vote on Second District justices; county ballots may also include other judicial retention questions.

What the choice actually is

California’s November 3, 2026 general election includes yes-or-no retention questions for 18 justices of the Second District Court of Appeal. These are not head-to-head races. A YES vote keeps the named justice in office for the term provided by law; a NO vote rejects that justice’s retention. Voters do not select the replacement in the same contest. If a justice is not retained, the vacancy is filled through California’s appointment process, which includes gubernatorial nomination and confirmation by the Commission on Judicial Appointments.

The Second District has eight divisions. Divisions 1 through 5, 7 and 8 sit in Los Angeles and hear appeals from Los Angeles County Superior Court; Division 6 sits in Ventura and hears appeals from Ventura, Santa Barbara and San Luis Obispo counties. The retention electorate is district-wide. The Secretary of State’s 2026 judicial election and term guide identifies the November election and the terms for appellate justices; the official Second District voter-guide page links to the court’s biographies. The Second District’s current roster includes other justices who are not among the 18 retention choices discussed here.

What these justices can actually control

The Court of Appeal reviews judgments and orders from trial courts. A three-justice panel generally decides a case from the record and legal arguments; it does not retry witnesses or substitute its preferred policy for the Legislature’s. Appellate justices interpret statutes and constitutional provisions, determine whether legal errors affected a judgment, and issue opinions that can guide later cases. Published opinions may bind trial courts unless displaced by the California Supreme Court or changed by statute.

The appropriate voter question is therefore whether the public evidence supports continuing each justice’s service: legal competence, careful reasoning, fair procedure, independence and professional ethics. A result that favors one litigant, policy or political constituency is not by itself evidence of poor judging. Reversal is also not equivalent to misconduct; reviewing courts correct legal errors, and a pattern matters more than a single disagreement.

The baseline and what happens under each alternative

Under YES, each justice continues in office for the applicable term, preserving the existing panel and institutional experience. Under NO, the justice does not receive voter approval to continue; the vote does not install a voter-selected successor. The Governor nominates a replacement and the Commission on Judicial Appointments considers the nominee. That process can bring a qualified successor, but the identity and record of a future appointee are unknown to voters when they cast this retention vote.

The baseline is not that the court is beyond oversight. Justices remain subject to the California Constitution, the Code of Judicial Ethics, appellate review, recusal duties and the Commission on Judicial Performance (CJP). The CJP can investigate and impose public discipline; many complaints and dispositions remain confidential. Retention elections add a periodic public check, but they provide little case-by-case information and can expose legal decisions to political pressure.

What the evidence shows

A consistent record review, with an important limit

I checked the official court roster and available biographies, the Secretary of State’s election and term materials, the CJP’s public decisions-by-judge index and public-discipline materials, and a targeted set of published opinions and reporting where a material question surfaced. The CJP index contains public decisions, not all complaints or private discipline. As of the research date, it lists no public disciplinary decision against any of the 18 justices reviewed. That is a finding about the public index, not proof that no complaint was ever filed or that no confidential action exists.

The 18 justices have varied lengths of appellate service. The court biographies document relevant prior work across trial judging, prosecution and defense, civil litigation, appellate practice, judicial research, teaching and court administration. Several newer appointees have shorter appellate records but substantial prior judicial or legal experience. California’s appointment process also includes evaluation by the State Bar’s confidential Commission on Judicial Nominees Evaluation and a public confirmation process. Those screening steps are relevant context; they are not substitutes for voters’ review of subsequent service.

The court’s official biographies describe professional histories rather than independently audited performance measures. The court does not publish a single quality score, and the available record does not provide comparable justice-by-justice measures for opinion quality, workload, reversal rate, recusal frequency or litigant experience. No such metric should be inferred from the absence of a public disciplinary decision.

A consequential disagreement: Yegan’s dissent in In re J.C.

In In re J.C. (Sept. 2, 2026), the majority reversed a juvenile court’s transfer of a defendant to criminal court after the Attorney General conceded that state law barred the transfer: the defendant was 15 when the offenses occurred and had been apprehended before juvenile jurisdiction ended. He had pleaded guilty to two second-degree murders under an agreement that included a 15-years-to-life sentence and a limited appeal. The majority remanded the matter to juvenile court. Justice Yegan dissented, arguing that the majority’s result could create a miscarriage of justice; he questioned the plea agreement’s “escape hatch,” urged briefing on the bargain, and identified a possible statutory mechanism for extended confinement if the person proved dangerous. The published opinion contains the majority’s statutory analysis and Yegan’s dissent; the Daily Journal’s report describes the unusually pointed rhetoric.

That case deserves scrutiny because it involves grave crimes, juvenile jurisdiction, public safety and a plea bargain that had imposed a life sentence. The majority’s conclusion rests on the statute and the Attorney General’s concession; Yegan’s concern is that correcting the transfer error could leave no meaningful punishment or treatment option and might reward a long procedural delay. His dissent is therefore a substantial disagreement with the consequences and handling of the case, not a public finding of misconduct. I did not find evidence that it forms part of a pattern of serious legal error or unfair procedure. It lowers confidence in a broad assessment of Yegan’s judgment in this case, but on its own does not support a NO recommendation.

Selected opinions with meaningful contrary or corroborating evidence

Recent legal reporting helped identify cases worth checking; the following examples are not a representative statistical sample and do not establish a complete record for any justice.

• Michelle C. Kim: In Krug v. Board of Trustees of the California State University (2025), Kim concluded the statute did not require CSU to reimburse a professor for work-from-home equipment. The California Supreme Court ordered reconsideration in light of another decision, and the panel again affirmed. In Dreher v. City of Santa Monica, Kim’s panel addressed water-rate tiering and refund claims; the Supreme Court granted review on a limited constitutional question. Reconsideration and review show the legal questions are consequential and subject to higher-court scrutiny; they are not findings that Kim committed error. The cases show statutory interpretation with real effects on employees and ratepayers, and reasonable readers can disagree with the balance she struck.
• Rashida A. Adams: Adams dissented in Carver v. Volkswagen Group of America (2024), reasoning that a manufacturer’s conditional repurchase offer did not necessarily satisfy the consumer-protection statute. In People v. Thompson (2025), she rejected an equal-protection claim despite the Attorney General’s concession; the Supreme Court later held the case pending a related matter. The Supreme Court also granted review in Illinois Midwest Insurance Agency v. Workers’ Compensation Appeals Board (2025), involving continuing home-health care. This record includes a consumer-protective dissent and contested criminal and workers’ compensation rulings. Pending review is unresolved, not evidence of error; the competing outcomes weigh against simple ideological labels.
• Helen Zukin: In G.G. v. G.S. (2024), Zukin’s opinion reversed denial of a domestic-violence restraining-order renewal, explaining that courts should not discount nonphysical abuse or require new violations. In Cook v. University of Southern California (2024), the panel held an unusually broad employment arbitration agreement unconscionable. A separate opinion in WasteXperts criticized personal attacks in appellate briefing. These examples show attention to statutory protections and courtroom process; the civility admonition is a judicial writing choice, not a discipline finding.
• John Shepard Wiley Jr.: In Loomis v. Amazon.com LLC (2021), Wiley concurred in reversing summary judgment on product-liability claims and explained how a distributor’s ability to identify and remove unsafe products could affect incentives. In Jane IL Doe v. Brightstar Residential Inc. (2022), he wrote that a residential-care facility’s low-cost precautions could have prevented serious harm. These cases make his public approach to tort law and practical consequences legible; the article does not treat that reasoning style as a preferred policy result.

These examples cut both ways. They include rulings that favor consumers, workers or people seeking protection, and rulings that reject claims or apply procedural statutes strictly. A justice’s role is not to maximize outcomes for one side; the relevant evidence is whether opinions state a reasoned legal basis and apply fair procedures. The reviewed profiles did not establish a verified pattern of serious error, but they also cannot replace a fuller opinion-by-opinion audit.

Individual public-record review

The recommendations below are separate because each justice is a separate ballot question. The “experience documented” column summarizes the official court record and role history; it is not an endorsement by the court. The common public-discipline finding is bounded as described above.

For newer appointees, the recommendation rests more on prior judicial and legal work than on a long appellate record. For longer-serving justices, voters have more published work to inspect, but a manageable sample still cannot establish overall quality. The absence of public CJP discipline is only one integrity screen; it is not a quality rating.

Fiscal effects, distribution and opportunity cost

These votes do not establish a new tax, spending program or direct fee for voters. The justices’ compensation and court operations are part of California’s existing judicial budget. Retention can affect institutional continuity, appointment workload and how legal rules develop, but the reviewed election materials do not quantify a measurable incremental fiscal effect attributable to a YES or NO vote. A claim that one justice’s retention would produce a specific budget saving or cost would be unsupported on this record.

Applying the ten Civic Outcomes lenses

1. Human welfare: Appellate decisions can affect liberty, family integrity, safety, property and access to remedies. The public record reviewed does not support reducing any justice’s work to one favored outcome; Yegan’s juvenile dissent is a consequential disagreement but not a complete measure of his work.
2. Distribution and inequality: Appeals involve people and institutions with unequal resources. Public defenders, consumer advocates and civil-rights litigators bring different professional experience to the court, but biographies alone do not establish how individual opinions distribute benefits or burdens.
3. Civil liberties and equal treatment: Due process, equal treatment and liberty are central appellate concerns. No public discipline or substantiated pattern of unequal treatment was located in the sources reviewed; the opinion sample is not sufficient to establish the absence of such a pattern.
4. Economic and material effects: Civil, employment, housing, family and criminal appeals can materially affect Californians. These consequences arise case by case; no justice-specific aggregate effect estimate is available.
5. Fiscal reality and opportunity cost: The vote has no directly quantified fiscal impact. Continuity preserves experience, while a vacancy imposes appointment and transition costs that the sources do not quantify.
6. Institutional integrity and democratic accountability: Retention gives voters a periodic check, while the independent judiciary needs protection from decisions driven by short-term popularity. The CJP and appellate-review systems provide additional checks, each with distinct roles and limits.
7. Evidence of effectiveness: Judicial effectiveness is not captured by a single public metric. Official biographies and public opinions establish experience and legal reasoning in selected cases, not causal evidence that one justice produces better statewide outcomes.
8. Implementation and administrative capacity: Replacing a justice requires a gubernatorial nomination and confirmation process; the court must manage the vacancy and appointment transition. The record does not quantify delay or workload impacts for any specific NO vote.
9. Unintended consequences and behavioral response: A retention campaign organized around individual case outcomes can encourage judges to anticipate electoral pressure. Conversely, a well-founded NO vote can signal accountability for serious misconduct or persistent incapacity. Neither risk justifies an automatic YES or automatic NO.
10. Reversibility, resilience and future lock-in: A NO vote creates a vacancy that is not filled by a named alternative on the ballot; a YES vote preserves the incumbent for the term. Neither choice is wholly irreversible, because future retention votes, ethics enforcement, legislation and appellate review remain available, but the immediate replacement process is uncertain.

The strongest case for and against each alternative

The strongest case for YES is that voters retain experienced judges whose public records reviewed here contain no public CJP discipline or demonstrated pattern of serious legal failure. Several have substantial trial-court or appellate experience. A retention system can preserve independence by asking voters to remove a judge only when the evidence shows a meaningful failure of competence, integrity or fair procedure, rather than disagreement with lawful decisions.

The strongest case for NO is that public accountability must have practical force; the appointment screen is confidential in part, and the public has limited comparable performance data. Voters may reasonably believe that a justice’s reasoning, temperament or treatment of litigants warrants replacement even without formal discipline. Yegan’s In re J.C. dissent illustrates why a justice’s approach to high-stakes cases can prompt legitimate scrutiny. The limitation is that one disputed opinion, especially a dissent, does not by itself establish a pattern or provide the voter with a more qualified replacement choice.

The strongest case for treating each justice separately is that appellate courts are collegial, but judges exercise individual judgment and hold separate offices. A group finding of “no public discipline” does not mean that their careers, writing or decisions are interchangeable. This guide therefore does not claim that every justice has an identical record; it makes a distinct recommendation for each ballot question while disclosing that the public evidence is much deeper for some careers than others.

Campaign claims audit

Funding and interested parties

SCAN, a legal commentary and advocacy outlet, publicly urges YES votes for the Second District justices. Its position is relevant as advocacy but does not determine the merits. The court biographies and official election materials are government sources and are not independent performance evaluations.

This research did not reconcile FPPC campaign statements, independent expenditures or every possible committee for the 18 retention questions. The state election guide explains that appellate justices on the ballot must file campaign disclosure statements, including when they otherwise do not need to file certain committee forms. No funding claim is used to support the recommendations. A current CAL-ACCESS/FPPC search remains a release-stage check, especially for late contributions or organized opposition.

What remains unknown

• The CJP’s public database does not reveal confidential complaints or private discipline, so this review cannot establish that no complaint or confidential action exists.
• The public does not have a standardized, comparable measure of opinion quality, reversals, recusals, case-management performance or litigant experience for all 18 justices.
• The targeted opinion review is not a comprehensive review of every published and unpublished decision. It can identify a material issue but cannot establish a complete pattern for each justice.
• For newer appointees, the appellate record is short. Prior trial-court and legal experience supports the analysis but does not eliminate that uncertainty.
• Campaign finance and independent spending were not fully reconciled.
• The replacement and timing effects of any NO vote cannot be known because the successor is not named on the ballot.

These limits primarily reduce confidence, particularly for recent appointees and for Yegan, whose dissent drew a focused review. No unresolved fact located in this research establishes a specific justice’s unfitness or changes the individual recommendations.

What would change this analysis?

A public CJP finding, credible evidence of a serious undisclosed conflict or recusal failure, verified evidence of repeated disregard for controlling law or fair procedure, or a documented pattern of prejudicial errors could support a NO recommendation for the affected justice. A single reversal or unpopular result would not be enough without context. Conversely, a fuller representative review of opinions and records showing consistently careful reasoning, transparent treatment of uncertainty and fair process would strengthen confidence, especially for newer justices. A late ballot correction, new official discipline decision or material campaign-finance finding should be checked before publication.

sherafy.com recommendation: YES retain each of the 18 justices — moderate confidence overall; low-to-moderate for newer appointees

I recommend YES for Michelle C. Kim, Gregory J. Weingart, Anne Richardson, Steve Goorvitch, Rashida A. Adams, Mark K. Hanasono, Helen Zukin, Audra M. Mori, Nicholas F. Daum, Armen Tamzarian, Brian M. Hoffstadt, Tari L. Cody, Kenneth R. Yegan, Gonzalo C. Martinez, Natalie P. Stone, John Shepard Wiley Jr., Matthew A. Scherb and Victor G. Viramontes. The table above gives a separate confidence level and reason for every justice. The decisive evidence is role-relevant judicial and legal experience, together with the absence of a public disciplinary finding or a substantiated pattern of serious legal or procedural failure in the material reviewed.

The recommendation does not presume that incumbents deserve automatic retention. The burden is to compare continued service with the real alternative: a vacancy followed by an unknown appointment, not a named competing judge. Because the NO vote removes an individual justice without selecting the successor, a decision to reject retention should rest on affirmative evidence of a serious deficit in competence, integrity, independence or fair procedure. In this record, that threshold is not met for any of the 18.

The best contrary evidence is Yegan’s forceful In re J.C. dissent, and the best system-level objection is that public voters have limited access to comparable performance information. Those are meaningful qualifications. Yet the dissent is a legal argument in a divided panel, not an ethics finding or a demonstrated pattern. The information gap cuts both ways: it cautions against overconfidence, but does not justify treating every justice as unfit absent evidence.

Confidence is moderate for justices with a longer documented judicial or appellate record and low-to-moderate for newer appointees whose appellate work is still developing. A material public discipline finding or a verified pattern of serious, prejudicial error would change the affected person’s recommendation. Broader opinion-level review and fully reconciled campaign records would improve the release record but, on the evidence now available, do not require leaving the ballot undecided.

Evidence Ledger

References and Further Reading

• California Secretary of State, Official Voter Information Guide: Courts of Appeal—Second District — official district voter information and links to current justice biographies. It is also a current roster directory, so it should not be read as a list limited to retention candidates.
• California Secretary of State, Justices of the California Supreme and Appellate Courts—Elections and Terms of Office (September 4, 2026) — official election date, appellate election mechanics, terms and filing/disclosure context. The guide distinguishes justices standing for election from those whose terms extend beyond 2026.
• California Courts, Second District current justices — official roster and links to biographies. The bios support appointment dates and professional histories, not independent evaluation of opinion quality.
• California Courts, Nicholas F. Daum biography and Governor’s announcement of Second District appointments — official appointment dates and prior experience for Daum; the biography is not an independent evaluation.
• California Courts, “Commission to Consider Appointments to the 2nd District Court of Appeal” (May 22, 2026) — official announcement and background for Steve Goorvitch’s appointment; prior experience does not substitute for a longer appellate record.
• California Courts, What to Know About Judicial Selection — overview of appellate retention, appointment and confirmation. Published October 5, 2026.
• California Commission on Judicial Performance, Decisions by Judge’s Name and Public Decisions Database — public decisions and discipline search. The index itself states that cases without public charges or public discipline remain confidential.
• California Court of Appeal, In re J.C., No. B345707 (Sept. 2, 2026) — official case page for the published majority opinion and Justice Yegan’s dissent; the full text was read. It does not itself establish misconduct.
• Daily Journal, “Justice’s dissents question results he says law cannot support” (September 28, 2026) — independent legal reporting on Yegan and In re J.C.; subscriber-limited article, used for the reported framing and case context rather than as a substitute for the opinion.
• Daily Journal, “Kim rulings weigh what public agencies owe employees, litigants, ratepayers” (September 30, 2026) — identifies Krug and Dreher and their review posture; reporting, not a substitute for the opinions or a finding of error.
• Daily Journal, “New Division 3 presiding justice faces voters with record of rulings that cut both ways” (October 2, 2026) — discusses Adams’s Carver, Thompson and Illinois Midwest opinions and relevant review status; used to identify contrary evidence, not infer error from review.
• Daily Journal, “Justice Zukin helped build state’s judicial mentor program, faces first retention vote” (October 8, 2026) — reports on G.G., Cook and WasteXperts; selected opinions and professional background.
• Daily Journal, “Election 2026: Wiley brings writer’s approach to work on appellate bench” (September 25, 2026) — selected opinions and Wiley’s background; reporting used to examine his public judicial approach.
• LAist, “California Courts of Appeal for LA and OC: What you need to know” (updated October 9, 2026) — current regional voter explainer and 18-name Second District list; cross-checked against Secretary of State election materials.
• Southern California Appellate News, “Vote to confirm our Justices!” (September 25, 2026) — advocates YES votes and lists a 16-name roster. Treated as advocacy and an earlier roster, not as independent proof of fitness or the final ballot slate.
• California Judicial Branch, appellate justices and disqualification — discussion of appellate recusal rules and public discipline material. It is legal background, not a finding about any justice in this article.

Editorial currency and research limits

Research currency: October 11, 2026. The official statewide appellate election-and-term guide was updated September 4, 2026; the Second District roster and biographies were checked as currently posted; the CJP public decisions index and selected 2026 reporting were reviewed. The 18-person ballot slate was cross-checked against the official election materials and the current roster. Before release, verify each reader’s county/sample ballot, any late ballot correction or discipline decision, all relevant FPPC filings and independent expenditures, and any material new appellate disposition. This is an editorial self-review, not independent judicial or legal expert review. The limited opinion sample cannot certify publication-wide performance.

Return to the Los Angeles County Voter Guide 2026.