Recommendation: Vote YES to retain Kelli M. Evans and YES to retain Joshua P. Groban. Confidence is moderate for each. The public record reviewed shows substantial relevant legal experience, reasoned judicial opinions and no located public finding of misconduct or incapacity. The strongest argument for a NO vote is that retention should be meaningful accountability, particularly when judges exercise final authority over state law. That principle matters, but the reviewed record does not establish a justice-specific failure serious enough to justify rejecting either justice.
This analysis uses the sherafy.com Civic Outcomes Standard. Los Angeles County readers can return to the Los Angeles County Voter Guide 2026 for the complete ballot. These are statewide questions: California voters decide each justice separately.
What the choice actually is
The California Secretary of State’s November 3, 2026 Official Voter Information Guide lists Associate Justices Kelli M. Evans and Joshua P. Groban for separate, nonpartisan retention votes. A “yes” vote elects that justice to continue serving for the term provided by law; a “no” vote rejects that justice. There is no opposing candidate on the ballot, and a voter can reach a different conclusion for each justice.
The California Constitution’s judicial-selection system combines appointment, professional review, public confirmation and periodic voter review. A governor nominates a justice; the Commission on Judicial Appointments must confirm the nomination; voters then decide whether to retain the justice at the applicable election. Supreme Court justices serve 12-year terms, subject to the rules for appointments and unexpired terms. The official guide lists Evans as appointed in 2023 after serving on the Alameda County Superior Court, and Groban as appointed in 2018 after private practice and service as Governor Jerry Brown’s senior judicial adviser.
A “no” vote is not an immediate removal order. An appointed justice serves until the current appointment ends; rejection at the retention election means the justice cannot be elected to that court, and the vacancy is filled under the constitutional appointment process. A “yes” vote extends the justice’s service for the term prescribed by law. The exact next election date should be checked against the official roster and ballot materials as terms can depend on the predecessor’s seat.
What the court can actually control
The California Supreme Court is the state’s court of last resort. It reviews selected civil and criminal appeals, resolves important questions of California law and supervises the state judicial system. Its published decisions bind lower California courts unless later changed by the Supreme Court, the Legislature or voters within their respective authority. The justices do not set budgets or administer every trial court directly, but their legal interpretations can affect liberty, family integrity, civil rights, public administration and the obligations of state and local government.
The proper retention question is whether each justice has demonstrated the legal competence, ethical conduct, independence, quality of reasoning and fairness needed to keep that authority. A voter’s disagreement with a lawful outcome is relevant to democratic judgment, but it does not by itself establish incompetence or misconduct. Conversely, judicial independence does not make a justice immune from accountability for serious and well-supported failures.
The baseline and the realistic alternatives
Both justices currently serve by appointment. A YES vote keeps each on the court under the applicable term; a NO vote does not install a named replacement, but triggers the constitutional process for a new appointment when the current service ends. Voters therefore compare continuity under the incumbent justice with a new gubernatorial nomination and confirmation—not one judicial philosophy against a guaranteed alternative.
The appointment process is a meaningful quality screen: the Judicial Nominees Evaluation Commission reviews nominees, the Governor selects and nominates, and the Commission on Judicial Appointments holds a public confirmation process. But those reviews do not replace the voter’s decision. Nor does the existence of appointment review prove that an incumbent should automatically be retained. The question is whether the evidence supports using this particular election to end that justice’s service.
What the evidence shows
Kelli M. Evans
The official voter guide reports that Evans was admitted to the California Bar in 1994 and earned her law degree at UC Davis. Her career includes work as an assistant public defender, civil-rights attorney at the U.S. Department of Justice, associate director of the ACLU of Northern California, federal police monitor, State Bar administrator, California Department of Justice adviser, and chief deputy legal affairs secretary to Governor Gavin Newsom. She served as an Alameda County Superior Court judge from 2021 to 2022 and joined the Supreme Court in 2023. This breadth is relevant preparation, though a résumé cannot establish the quality of a justice’s rulings.
One revealing example is In re Dezi C., an opinion Evans authored. It concerned California’s implementation of the federal Indian Child Welfare Act (ICWA), which protects tribal interests and children’s connections to their tribes in child-custody proceedings. The court held that when child-welfare agencies and courts fail to make a legally adequate inquiry into possible Native American ancestry, a reviewing court generally must conditionally reverse and remand so the inquiry can be completed. The court did not hold that every inadequate inquiry requires permanent reversal of a termination order; the order could be reinstated if a proper inquiry showed ICWA did not apply.
The opinion explains its reasoning: agencies and courts have an affirmative statutory duty to investigate beyond simply shifting the burden to parents, and the missing inquiry can leave the record unable to show whether a tribe’s rights were implicated. Justice Groban dissented, emphasizing the countervailing harm of uncertainty and delay for children awaiting stable placement. That disagreement is substantive, not evidence of personal misconduct. It provides a concrete example of Evans weighing statutory compliance and tribal interests against finality and child-placement stability.
Joshua P. Groban
The official voter guide reports Groban’s California Bar admission in 1998, Harvard law degree, federal clerkship, years in private civil litigation, service as Governor Jerry Brown’s senior adviser on judicial appointments, and teaching at UCLA School of Law. He joined the Supreme Court in 2018. His prior role advising on judicial appointments is relevant background and a potential source of public scrutiny, but it is not evidence that his own rulings favor former colleagues or a political sponsor. The decisions reviewed here provide no support for that inference.
In Dezi C., Groban’s dissent made the strongest case against Evans’s rule. He argued that when parents had repeatedly denied Native American ancestry and the record supplied no reason to believe the child was eligible for tribal membership, automatic conditional reversal could prolong uncertainty without changing the outcome. That is a serious concern about family stability and the costs of appellate error correction. The majority responded that agencies cannot benefit from their own failure to gather information that the law requires, and that tribes and children have interests the parent’s statement alone may not resolve. This is a difficult legal balance; reasonable disagreement does not identify a competence defect.
In Needham v. Superior Court, Groban wrote a concurring and dissenting opinion in a civil-commitment case. He agreed that the state could not independently examine the person under the statutory scheme, but disagreed that prosecutors could hire a separate expert to testify about whether the person qualified for commitment. He read the statute’s detailed evaluator safeguards and allocation of expert rights as limiting that prosecution evidence. His dissent focused on the consequences for liberty and the risk that a hired expert could bypass legislative safeguards. The majority read the statute differently. The opinion shows statutory analysis and attention to procedural liberty; it does not prove that Groban is invariably defendant-favoring or that every reader should agree with his interpretation.
Recent court action and the limits of vote counting
In September 2026, the court unanimously decided Cervantes v. Bianco and Bonta v. Bianco. The first required the return of ballots seized by a Riverside County sheriff, holding that election law limited who could handle voted ballots; the second affirmed the Attorney General’s authority to direct the sheriff in the investigation. Evans and Groban joined the court’s unanimous rulings. These recent cases concern consequential election and state-authority questions, but unanimity does not demonstrate how each justice would have voted in a split decision, and joining a majority does not substitute for reading the reasoning.
The article uses selected opinions to illustrate the justices’ reasoning and the stakes of their work. It does not claim to score every vote, calculate a meaningful reversal rate or infer a fixed ideology from a few cases. California Supreme Court review is highly selective, and a reversal by the U.S. Supreme Court or another court would require case-specific analysis of the legal issue, reasoning and procedural posture. No pattern of extraordinary legal error was established in this targeted review.
Fiscal effects, distribution and opportunity cost
The retention choices do not directly appropriate funds or impose a new tax. Judicial salaries and court operations are set through state constitutional and budget processes, not by one justice. The meaningful fiscal and material consequences are indirect: legal interpretations can affect state and local obligations, litigation costs, and the administration of public programs. The reviewed evidence does not support a defensible forecast of how either justice would change those costs relative to a replacement.
The principal distributional stakes are legal. Supreme Court decisions can determine whether people receive fair procedure, whether state agencies meet statutory duties, how rights are enforced, and how government power is constrained. Both retention and replacement carry opportunity costs: retaining preserves continuity and accumulated experience; rejecting creates a new appointment process but also risks disrupting doctrinal stability and invites greater uncertainty about the replacement.
Applying the ten Civic Outcomes lenses
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Human welfare. The court’s decisions can shape liberty, family stability, public safety and access to legal remedies. Dezi C. makes the tension concrete: timely permanency for children matters, as do compliance with ICWA and tribal-child connections. The record does not quantify the effects of retaining either justice.
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Distribution and inequality. Supreme Court rules apply statewide and often affect people with unequal power to navigate courts. Evans’s public-service and civil-rights experience and both justices’ attention to statutory duties are relevant context, but biography does not establish equal outcomes in practice.
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Civil liberties and equal treatment. Groban’s Needham opinion directly addresses liberty interests in civil commitment; Dezi C. addresses tribal and family interests. The court’s legal reasoning affects rights, but these examples do not establish a simple policy score for either justice.
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Economic and material effects. Court decisions can alter litigation obligations, business rules and state programs. No comparable evidence shows that either justice’s retention would produce better economic outcomes or a predictable net material effect.
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Fiscal reality and opportunity cost. The votes carry no direct fiscal estimate. Replacement could change legal doctrine and future state costs, but no responsible dollar forecast can be made from this record.
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Institutional integrity and democratic accountability. Appointment, confirmation, ethics rules, appellate precedent and voter retention provide distinct checks. Voters should use the retention vote to identify demonstrated unfitness or serious failure, not to convert a judge into a partisan delegate.
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Evidence of effectiveness. The justices’ official biographies establish substantial legal experience, and published opinions provide a sample of their reasoning. There is no public, standardized performance evaluation or meaningful comparison of accuracy, courtroom conduct or decision quality.
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Implementation and administrative capacity. A justice works within a seven-member court, follows court procedures and must manage a demanding appellate docket. The public materials reviewed do not provide comparable workload or case-management metrics for Evans and Groban.
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Unintended consequences and behavioral response. Replacing a justice for a particular unpopular ruling can pressure courts toward short-term political preferences; refusing to scrutinize judges can weaken accountability. Neither risk justifies automatic retention or automatic rejection. A specific, serious record should drive the decision.
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Reversibility, resilience and future lock-in. A retention vote affects service for the term provided by law. A new appointment can change the court’s future composition, while precedent may persist until the court or lawmakers change it. Errors can be addressed through rehearing, future cases, legislation where permitted, or constitutional amendment, but those remedies may not repair all harms in an individual case.
The strongest case for and against retaining each justice
The strongest case for retaining Evans is her unusually broad mix of trial, civil-rights, police-monitoring, executive-branch and judicial experience, followed by published Supreme Court work that articulates the statutory and institutional stakes of its rulings. The Dezi C. majority explains why the inquiry duty cannot be shifted to parents and preserves a route to reinstate a termination order after a proper inquiry. The opinion’s disagreement with Groban identifies a real counterweight—children’s need for permanence—rather than hiding it.
The strongest case against retaining Evans is that her Supreme Court tenure is relatively short, the available review cannot establish how she performs across the full docket, and the Dezi C. rule can require remand even where parents previously denied ancestry, creating delay and uncertainty for children. A voter could reasonably prioritize finality and child stability differently. On this record, however, the majority’s legal explanation is reasoned, the remedy is conditional, and no demonstrated misconduct or serious error was found.
The strongest case for retaining Groban is his years of appellate service, complex civil-practice background, judicial-selection experience and opinions that engage directly with statutory limits and procedural safeguards. His Needham dissent explains how permitting a prosecution expert outside the statute’s prescribed evaluation process could affect a person’s liberty. In Dezi C., his dissent also offers a focused account of the costs the majority rule could impose on children awaiting permanency.
The strongest case against retaining Groban is that voters may disagree with his legal approach in consequential cases, including his view that statutory protections in Needham restrict additional prosecution expert testimony and his objection to conditional remands in some ICWA cases. His prior advisory role to a governor who appointed judges is also a legitimate reason to scrutinize independence. But the sampled opinions show legal disagreement, not favoritism; no evidence reviewed connects his former role to biased rulings or establishes a pattern of deficient reasoning.
Claims audit: advocacy and public framing
| Claim or framing | Evidence reviewed | Finding | Limit |
|---|---|---|---|
| A NO vote immediately removes a justice. | Secretary of State retention guide and California Constitution, Article VI, section 16. | Misleading. An appointee serves until the current appointment ends; a NO vote prevents election to the court and a replacement is selected under the appointment process. | Check the exact term and ballot instructions before voting; this article does not calculate each appointment’s end date. |
| A justice’s vote in a politically salient case proves partisan bias. | Cervantes, Attorney General v. Bianco, and the justices’ separate opinions in Dezi C. and Needham. | Unsupported as a general claim. A ruling should be assessed by its record, legal question, reasoning and procedure. | This sample is not a complete review of every opinion or relationship. |
| The Dezi C. ruling automatically terminates adoptions or reverses parental-rights cases. | Opinion by Evans, including disposition and reinstatement conditions. | Incorrect. The remedy is conditional; a juvenile court can reinstate its order after adequate inquiry establishes ICWA does not apply. | Individual cases depend on their records and the governing statutes. |
| Groban’s former role advising a governor on judicial appointments proves he is beholden to that governor. | Official biography and sampled published opinions. | Not established. The prior role warrants scrutiny, but no evidence reviewed ties it to favoritism in his judicial work. | A limited sample cannot prove the absence of all conflicts or bias. |
| No public discipline proves no complaint or concern has ever existed. | Commission on Judicial Performance jurisdiction and public materials. | False. The commission may keep complaints and investigations confidential; only some proceedings and outcomes are public. | The review found no public discipline announcement naming either justice, not a complete confidential record. |
Funding and interested parties
These are retention questions, not ordinary candidate campaigns with opposing nominees. Public advocacy groups have issued YES or NO recommendations, often alongside positions on other judicial or ballot contests. For example, the Pacific Palisades Republican Club’s guide lists NO for both justices, while OC Indivisible recommends YES for both. These positions show that voters encounter sharply different advocacy cues; neither endorsement is a performance evaluation or evidence of how a justice will decide future cases.
This review did not reconcile all FPPC filings, independent expenditures or paid communications related to either retention question. No conclusion about the scale or source of campaign spending is made. Any claim that the justices are controlled by a donor, party or interest group would require evidence beyond an endorsement or a position on one case.
What remains unknown
- The public record does not include the Commission on Judicial Performance’s confidential complaint and investigation files. The commission’s constitutional mandate permits confidentiality, so no public discipline found is not proof that no complaint was ever made.
- The review sampled opinions rather than systematically coding every majority opinion, concurrence, dissent, recusal or rehearing order. It cannot establish comparative outcome patterns or a stable ideological label.
- No independent, standardized measure of legal accuracy, clarity, workload or litigant experience was found for either justice.
- The financial and organizational support surrounding the retention questions was not fully reconciled.
- Evans’s shorter tenure on the Supreme Court leaves less published work to assess than Groban’s, which limits like-for-like comparison.
These limits reduce confidence from high to moderate. They do not establish that either justice is unfit. They also mean that YES recommendations rest on the public record reviewed, not a claim that the justices’ entire professional records have been exhaustively audited.
What would change this analysis?
The recommendation for either justice would change with a substantiated public discipline finding, credible evidence of repeated ethical violations or serious recusal failures, or a well-supported pattern of legal errors that demonstrates inability or unwillingness to apply law fairly. A single unpopular ruling, dissent or reversal would not suffice without examining its facts, legal basis, treatment by later courts and procedural context.
Evidence of an undisclosed conflict tied to a decision, knowingly inaccurate public statements about judicial work, or a consistent failure to explain reasoning could also change the conclusion. Conversely, a public performance review, a broader representative opinion analysis, or a new official discipline record confirming the absence or presence of relevant conduct would improve the comparison. The review should be refreshed close to Election Day for any new order, public discipline, ballot correction or material finance disclosure.
sherafy.com recommendation: YES to retain Kelli M. Evans; YES to retain Joshua P. Groban — moderate confidence for each
Kelli M. Evans — YES to retain. Her public-service career spans public defense, civil rights litigation, federal police monitoring, state legal administration, executive-branch legal work, a trial-court judgeship and the state’s highest court. The Dezi C. opinion reflects a reasoned application of a statutory duty and makes clear that the remedy is conditional rather than automatic reversal. Groban’s dissent supplies a serious argument about child-placement stability, but the majority explains why an agency’s failure to make the inquiry required by law cannot be treated as harmless simply because the deficient record lacks the information the inquiry was meant to find. The record does not show that the disagreement reflects incompetence or unethical conduct.
Joshua P. Groban — YES to retain. His legal experience and appellate tenure are substantial, and his opinions engage with statutory design and procedural safeguards. The strongest contrary case is that his interpretation in Needham could allow a more prosecution-favorable evidentiary rule than the statute’s detailed protections support, and that his prior judicial-adviser role merits scrutiny. The sampled record does not establish a recurring pattern of unfairness, compromised independence or unreasoned decisions. His Dezi C. dissent is also a substantial, child-welfare-centered challenge to a rule that can extend uncertainty.
The values carrying the most weight are competence, fair process, independence and accountability. Retention should not be treated as automatic simply because an incumbent was appointed or because no public discipline was located. The evidence reviewed affirmatively shows relevant experience and publicly reasoned work, while the strongest NO arguments center on contestable legal judgments rather than a demonstrated failure of judicial fitness. Given the high stakes of a state high court and the limits of this sample, the appropriate confidence is moderate rather than high.
A voter could reasonably place greater weight on the legal approaches represented in Dezi C. or Needham and vote NO, but the Civic Outcomes judgment asks whether the record demonstrates a sufficiently serious justice-specific problem to end service. Here, it does not. Each justice’s YES recommendation is independent: new evidence about one would not automatically change the other’s.
Evidence Ledger
| Material question | Finding | Evidence type and source | Confidence | Limit |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Who is on the statewide ballot? | Kelli M. Evans and Joshua P. Groban each have a separate retention question on November 3, 2026. | Official Secretary of State voter guide. | High | Refresh against the final official ballot close to Election Day. |
| What does retention mean? | YES elects the justice to continue for the applicable term; NO rejects election and the seat is filled through the constitutional appointment process after current service ends. | Official voter guide and California Constitution, Article VI. | High | Individual term-end dates depend on the seat and appointment history. |
| Are their qualifications relevant to the role? | Both have substantial legal experience; Evans has public defense/civil-rights, monitoring, government and trial-court work; Groban has litigation, judicial-adviser and teaching experience. | Official voter guide and court biographies. | High for stated background | Experience is not a measure of judicial quality. |
| Do selected opinions show reasoned disagreement? | Yes. Dezi C. addresses statutory inquiry duties and tribal interests versus child-placement finality; Needham addresses statutory safeguards and liberty in civil commitment. | Published opinions, including separate opinions. | High for the opinions’ stated reasoning | A selected sample cannot establish a complete pattern. |
| Was public discipline located? | No public disciplinary finding naming either justice was located in the targeted public-source review. | Commission on Judicial Performance public materials and search. | Moderate | Confidential matters may exist; this is not a complete record. |
| Should voters retain each justice? | YES for Evans and YES for Groban; no justice-specific evidence reviewed crosses the threshold for rejecting retention. | Editorial inference using competence, ethics, independence, reasoning and fair process as core values. | Moderate | Confidential records, broader opinion review or new evidence could change the result. |
References and Further Reading
- California Secretary of State, 2026 Official Voter Information Guide: Supreme Court Justices. Confirms the election date, retention format, appointment process and each justice’s qualifications and judicial background.
- California Constitution, Article VI, section 16. Governs election and appointment of appellate justices, retention questions, and terms. Other Article VI provisions govern court jurisdiction and discipline.
- Justice Kelli M. Evans, California Supreme Court biography. Official career biography; the State Voter Guide supplies the more detailed dated background used here.
- Associate Justice Joshua P. Groban, California Supreme Court biography. Official career biography and appointment background.
- California Code of Judicial Ethics. Governing ethical rules for California judges and justices.
- Commission on Judicial Performance, public discipline decisions. The current public decisions-by-judge index contains no entry under Evans or Groban. The Commission also states that some discipline is confidential, so this does not establish that no complaint or confidential action exists.
- In re Dezi C., S275578. Evans-authored opinion and docket materials concerning California ICWA inquiry duties; Groban’s dissent addresses stability and delay concerns.
- Needham v. Superior Court, S276395. Groban’s concurring and dissenting opinion on prosecution expert testimony under the Sexually Violent Predator Act.
- Cervantes v. Bianco, S295866 and Bonta v. Bianco, S295901. September 2026 rulings on custody of voted ballots and state supervisory authority; Evans and Groban joined the unanimous decisions. The first opinion states that the Court did not decide the parties’ disputed ballot-count discrepancy figures.
- Pacific Palisades Republican Club, 2026 voter guide and OC Indivisible, 2026 endorsements. Examples of competing YES/NO group recommendations; advocacy, not independent performance evaluations.
- California Supreme Court, Published Opinions. Official repository for published opinions; this review sampled cases rather than coding every vote or outcome.
Editorial currency and research limits
Research currency: October 11, 2026. Ballot status and major cited opinions were checked against official state sources available on that date. Recheck the personalized ballot, any new public discipline or recusal information, and late finance disclosures before release. The source and recommendation audit and supporting memo document the targeted scope; this is a self-audit, not an independent legal or expert review.
Return to the Los Angeles County Voter Guide 2026.
