Municipal Court v. Superior Court

The Municipal Court of Monterey County in its own name seeks a writ of mandate directed to the superior court. The People and Theodore H. Swenson, parties to a misdemeanor prosecution below, are the real parties in interest. The municipal court requests: (1) that we issue a peremptory writ of mandate commanding the superior court to order that the People’s peremptory challenge to the trial judge was untimely filed; (2) that we declare that the decision in Woodman v. Superior Court (1987) 196 Cal.App.3d 407 [ 241 Cal.Rptr. 818 ], governs the timeliness of peremptory challenges under the assignment system of the Monterey County Municipal Court.

We summarily denied the petition for writ of mandate, and the Supreme Court retransferred the matter with directions to issue an alternative writ, which we did. We will deny the petition for writ of mandate because the municipal court lacks standing to seek a writ of mandate against the superi- or court.

Record

The Municipal Court of Monterey County operates an assignment system whereby each misdemeanor case is alphabetically assigned to a department which hears all matters in that case, including pretrial motions and the trial…