4DCA Division 1 Oral Argument - 2026/01/13 - Jan 13, 2026

argument

4DCA Division 1 Oral Argument - 2026/01/13

California Fourth District Court of Appeal, Division One 4h 13m 1 speaker 5 chapters transcribed 7 days ago official recording ↗

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Transcript generated automatically by AI and may contain errors.

What technical check‑in and courtroom procedures are covered at the beginning of the session?

Martha 4:06

Good morning. This is Martha from the clerk's office. I will be doing a quick check-in for those of you up here remotely. If you can please unmute yourselves and turn on your videos.

Martha 4:29

Hi, good morning. So, um, Ms. Attorney Leah Nichols,

Unknown 4:35

you're

Martha 4:35

not, you're not on until this afternoon.

Unknown 4:39

Yeah. So I wanted to check in with you and then I wasn't sure what time I needed to, um, check back in, I guess.

Martha 4:46

Yeah. It's this afternoon. So if you want to just go ahead and, um, if you want to try like at one o'clock this afternoon, we should be already good to go. Okay.

Unknown 4:56

All right. Great. I will tune back in then. Thank

Martha 4:58

you. Thank you. Okay. Bye. Do I have Ala Sorikova?

Ala Zorikova 5:05

Yes, can you hear me?

Martha 5:06

Yes, I can hear you. Do you have a video?

Ala Zorikova 5:10

I will have it in the...

Martha 5:12

You

Ala Zorikova 5:12

just want to do audio?

5:14

Yes.

Ala Zorikova 5:15

I will have a video just to save my power for now.

Martha 5:21

Okay, that's fine, as long as we can hear you clearly. So I'm going to ask that you please keep your microphone off until your case is called. If you experience any technical difficulties during the oral argument session, immediately exit the video conference. and use the number and the access code that I emailed you this morning. Okay, so if you could please turn off your audio, and Court will be with you shortly. Thank you. Yes,

Ala Zorikova 5:47

thank

Martha 5:47

you.

10:43

This is the last one here. It's not Kalei, it's Kali?

Carl Fabian 10:46

Kali T. Kali T. Kali T. Kali T. Okay, got it. That's an easy way to remember. That's good, yeah. I remember there was that guy for, the guy who was the head of Iran for a while. He had this insanely complicated name like Ahmadinejad. And so people were like, something about I'm a dinner jacket or something. And like that actually worked. I started to remember. Yeah. Okay. Yeah.

Walt McNeil 12:34

Is there another check-in? Do we need to check in with you or is checking in with him? Yes. Okay.

Walt McNeil 12:50

Did you see a calendar? Yes.

12:53

Okay.

Walt McNeil 12:55

The gentleman checked in. He didn't put it in. I didn't see it posted anywhere. He just had it in front of him. Okay.

Walt McNeil 13:34

So you can't use it to make your decision.

Walt McNeil 14:03

You're

Daniel Kessler 14:03

welcome to go to the field. A few things before we get started this morning. The appellate table is to my right.

14:09

When you come to argue, please make sure you adjust the plug-in using the switcher on the right side. Make sure the microphone is pointing to your chin.

John Stevens 14:15

If you don't, the justices on the bench won't be able to hear you, and they'll stop you mid-argument if you properly adjust it. If you have to use the restroom, you have to come back through screening. You come inside the courtroom, and while court's in session, please keep talking, noise down to a minimum. Any questions for me? Appreciate it. Thank you.

Walt McNeil 16:20

Thank you.

Walt McNeil 18:09

Susanville was the best because you had to fly to Reno to get there. And again, you have to stay in Reno because you have to be there at 8 o'clock in the morning.

18:57

And found out that he hadn't tried two months since he'd been there.

19:29

I'm going to go in the end.

20:21

I'm quite surprised.

Unknown 20:48

Good morning. Oh, we have a dog appearing today. That's the first. Sorry. Good morning. Welcome to the Court of Appeal. With me on this first panel are Justice Buchanan to my right, Justice Kennedy to my left. There will be one panel change after the first three cases. But on all of the cases, keep in mind we're very familiar with your briefs, and just highlight those issues you think are most important. We'll start with People v. Sackowitz.

Walt McNeil 21:22

Thank you, Your Honor. I'm just going to go with Appellant because I have no idea how to properly say that last name. Richard Fitzgerald for Appellant. With the court's permission, unless you have questions about the Section 654 argument, I was going to address my comments today to the mental health diversion

Unknown 21:38

issue because

Walt McNeil 21:40

it's more significant to

Unknown 21:41

Appellant. It is. The doctor's testimony wasn't that helpful to your client's case.

Walt McNeil 21:47

Wasn't that? You mean at trial?

Unknown 21:50

For the diversion issues that were presented to the court.

Walt McNeil 21:55

So for the diversion, so there were two doctors. There was Dr. Shaw, who ended up testifying at trial, and there's

Unknown 22:01

Dr. Murphy. And talking about the mental health.

Walt McNeil 22:03

Right. So Dr. Murphy said, I thought the key thing that he said was that medication alone would not alleviate my client's delusions, which seems to be underpinning