Gomez

[EDITORS' NOTE: THIS OPINION IS DEPUBLISHED UPON GRANTING OF PETITION FOR REVIEW. THE OPINION APPEARS BELOW WITH A GRAY BACKGROUND.] [EDITORS' NOTE: THIS PAGE CONTAINS HEADNOTES. HEADNOTES ARE NOT AN OFFICIAL PRODUCT OF THE COURT, THEREFORE THEY ARE NOT DISPLAYED.] *Page 616 [EDITORS' NOTE: THIS PAGE CONTAINS HEADNOTES. HEADNOTES ARE NOT AN OFFICIAL PRODUCT OF THE COURT, THEREFORE THEY ARE NOT DISPLAYED.] *Page 617 OPINION State prison inmates are a litigious bunch when it comes to filing writ petitions challenging conditions of confinement or raising a multitude of other grievances. The plethora of paperwork has a disproportionate impact on trial courts in counties where state prisons are located" many of which are small county courts. For example, there are two separate prison facilities housing approximately 11,000 inmates in Lassen County, which has only two trial court judges. To timely address the many writ petitions filed there, the Lassen County Superior Court has been using a court commissioner to rule on ex parte applications filed by prison inmates seeking the issuance of writs of habeas corpus or writs of mandate or prohibition. It believes that doing so is authorized…

I concur in the result. But, without calling into question the abilities or integrity of California's commissioners who provide vital support to our judicial system, it is a result that gives one pause as it holds that a nonjudicial officer is captain of the gate when a person being held in confinement seeks the protections of the "Great Writ." (See Black's Law Diet. (8th ed. 2004) p. 728, col. 1.) While the majority is technically correct that at the time the petition for a writ of habeas corpus is summarily denied there is not yet a "cause" to be "tried," it is also correct that, absent appellate court intervention, there will never be a cause to be tried without the Commissioner's permission to pass. The summary denial of a petition for a writ of habeas corpus is a determination of the dispute between the prisoner and the confining authority by a nonjudicial officer, although not technically a "trial," of a "cause." *Page 630 Whether this is significant is a conceptual dilemma we need not resolve here because, for the reasons that follow, under Code of Civil Procedure section 259 , a commissioner has the authority to "hear and determine" writs of habeas corpus, an authority not…

Edmund G. Brown, Jr., Attorney General, Julie L. Garland, Assistant Attorney General, Jessica N. Blonien, Heather M. Heckler and Christopher J. Rench, Deputy Attorneys General, for Real Party in Interest California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation.

State prison inmates are a litigious bunch when it comes to filing writ petitions challenging conditions of confinement or raising a multitude of other grievances. The plethora of paperwork has a disproportionate impact on trial courts in counties where state prisons are located— many of which are small county courts. For example, there are two separate prison facilities housing approximately 11,000 inmates in Lassen County, which has only two trial court judges.

To timely address the many writ petitions filed there, the Lassen County Superior Court has been using a court commissioner to rule on ex parte applications filed by prison inmates seeking the issuance of writs of habeas corpus or writs of mandate or prohibition. It believes that doing so is authorized by Code of Civil Procedure section 259.

After their writ petitions were summarily denied by the commissioner, two prison inmates, Alfredo Gomez…