6DCA Oral Argument - 2026/02/05 Morning Session - Feb 05, 2026

argument

6DCA Oral Argument - 2026/02/05 Morning Session

California Sixth District Court of Appeal 2h 19m 8 chapters transcribed 9 days ago official recording ↗

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What are the initial appearances and case introductions at the start of the oral argument?

Unknown 1:37

Mm.

Unknown 2:23

Yeah.

Unknown 2:47

Yeah.

Unknown 3:05

Yeah.

Unknown 3:37

Mm-hmm.

Unknown 3:50

Yeah.

Unknown 6:21

Yeah, Yeah,

Unknown 7:04

That's good.

Catherine Rivlin 8:06

Good hiccups, just what I needed.

Unknown 9:23

Cool.

Unknown 9:33

Parties in council are here in person today. So um I am joined by my colleagues Justice Lee and Justice Wilson. Um we as you see um do have our laptops here on the bench. So if you see us looking over at them, we are uh reviewing briefs and the record and um all the documents that we have here with us electronically. Um I think uh we will take each case uh separately and I'll invite your appearances and your time estimates at that time. So uh with that uh we'll go ahead and take up our first matter. Uh people versus Rays. And for those of you in the audience, we do have council appearing remotely so we can see them on a screen here. Uh in the audience you won't be able to see them. Uh however, there are screens in the um ante room there and also uh our live stream and recording will pick up their appearances as well.

Unknown 10:30

Uh so with that uh we'll go ahead and take your appearances. Good morning, um counsel for the people.

Catherine Rivlin 10:40

Yes, Your Honor, good morning. Uh Catherine Rivlin for the people responded.

Unknown 10:45

And your time estimate, Ms. Rivlin?

Catherine Rivlin 10:47

Uh no more than ten minutes, Your Honor.

Unknown 10:49

All right, thank you very much. And good morning for Mr. Reyes. Good morning, Susanna McNamara appearing for Mr. Reyes. And Miss McNamara, your time estimate I believe is ten to open reserving five.

Susanna McNamara 11:01

Yes, correct.

Unknown 11:01

All right, very good. Then if you are ready,

Susanna McNamara 11:03

please go ahead. Thank you. Good morning, your honors, and may it please the court. I hope to address three points this morning which are addressed to some degree in the briefs filed. Uh however the recent decision in people v. Kabalar helped In my mind to clarify those points and I'm going to address the three points that that uh that case seemed to speak to. Uh first uh the decision in Kabalar illustrates that the trial court in exercising its discretion must make actual findings based on substantial evidence that support its decision to deny diversion. in the the trial court in Mr. Reyes's case failed to do so. Uh and I'm gonna talk about how the court failed to do so. First of all, the court never addressed the suitability factors required by the diversion statute.

Susanna McNamara 12:04

Uh secondly, the ruling of the trial court consisted of essentially four facts that were unrelated to the suitability factors in the statute. and which could not be categorized as findings exactly, since they did not relate to disputed facts nor uh were they conclusions of law. So the facts that the court recited as its basis denied diversion can be summarized uh as follows. One, a lengthy criminal history. to previous failures to appear. Three previous failures to take medication. And for the facts of the current defense. Uh in naming those four facts the trial court failed to articulate how these four facts made mister Reyes unsuitable for diversion. If the trial court had taken the next step, we could know what the court's findings were.

Susanna McNamara 13:05

Instead, we can only guess what implied findings these facts hint at. Second There are two implied findings contained in these aforementioned facts that uh Indicate a misunderstanding of the diversion statute. Uh and those two facts are that Well, those two findings are that number one uh there there's an implicit finding of dangerousness based on the uh facts that the court mentioned of a lengthy criminal history. And the facts of the current offense. Um However Uh the requirement for a finding of dangerousness is that the the um defendant commit or was likely to commit a super strike. Uh which the court in Mr. Reyes's case made clear that it was not making that finding. Um I also wanted to note something that I didn't note in the brief.

Susanna McNamara 14:17

Well, I noted it in the listing of facts, um, but not in my argument, and that is that Mr. Reyes When he entered his no contest no contest plea he was released on uh supervised OR. So that's a clear indication that the court did not consider him a danger to the public. The second uh possible implied finding implicit in the facts that the court licit listed is that Mr.