Thursday, July 30, 2026
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Los Angeles Superior Court General Order:
CCP §170.6 Motions Must Be Accompanied by Disclosures
Exception Is Made Where Attorney or Party Has Filed Only One or Two Disqualification Motions to the Jurist in Past Year; Procedure Is in Response to Supreme Court Opinion Calling for Crackdown on Blanket Affidaviting
By a MetNews Staff Writer
Attorneys and parties filing challenges to judicial officers under Code of Civil Procedure §170.6 will be required, under a Los Angeles Superior Court general order, to disclose any other instances during the past year of acting to bump the jurist from a case.
The order, issued Tuesday by Presiding Judge Sergio C. Tapia II, is in response to the California Supreme Court’s May 28 decision in J.O. v. Superior Court which, in particular, condemns the use of “blanket affidavits” (known as “papering”) such as those employed by offices of a county’s district attorney or public defendant to bar judges who are perceived as favorably inclined to the other side from presiding in criminal cases.
While a remand to the Court of Appeal was ordered to determine whether further proceedings are warranted in response to a challenge to a particular judge of the San Joaquin Superior Court—and thus to further define procedures in disqualifying a judge—the Supreme Court made clear that what has been regarded as a “peremptory challenge” now requires that a good-faith belief that the judge is actually biased.
Order Includes Exemption
Tapia’s order applies to “any lawyer, law firm, or legal office, government agency, public defender, prosecutor, institutional legal department, or other authorized legal representative that provides legal advice or representation to a party in a legal matter or court action,” exempting, however, “any party and any attorney that has filed two or fewer Section 170.6 challenges against the challenged judge in the preceding year.”
The presiding judge said in a “notice to attorneys”:
“In light of the Supreme Court’s recent decision in J.O., the Court is issuing this General Order to establish a clear, uniform process for section 170.6 challenges—one that sets firm expectations for parties, attorneys, and judicial officers and ensures these challenges are made responsibly and consistently. “This structure is essential to aligning the Court with the J.O. decision, preserving the integrity of judicial operations, and maintaining public confidence in the fair and effective administration of justice.”
Groban’s Opinion
In J.O., Justice Joshua P. Groban wrote for a unanimous court in observing that “reports of abuse” of §170.6, enacted in 1957, “have been well chronicled.” He said it has led to “judge shopping” and efforts “to delay proceedings, to disqualify a judge based on his or her ‘views on the law or on the exercise of judicial discretion’ or his or her ‘personality traits’…‘intimidate, punish, and/or silence’ a judge for an adverse ruling and warn other judges not to rule similarly…, or even as a vehicle for racial discrimination.”
Groban continued:
“These problems are particularly pronounced when challenges are improperly lodged in a blanket fashion. If, for example, a district attorney’s or public defender’s office engages in the practice of removing a judge from all cases or a substantial portion of cases on a bad faith basis, or all cases or a substantial portion of cases of a particular type, the office can effectively control the extent to which that judge hears such cases. Such practices can even force a judge out of a particular judicial assignment altogether.”
The justice wrote that, as set forth in the California Supreme Court’s 1957 decision in Solberg v. Superior Court, the “efficient and discreet procedure” created by §170.6 is constitutional, but declared that Solberg is overruled “to the extent it concluded that blanket abuses of section 170.6 are immune from as-applied challenges on separation of powers grounds.”
He announced:
“[W]e hold that if a party timely objects to a section 170.6 motion and makes a prima facie showing that the motion’s proponent is lodging bad faith blanket challenges against a judge, a court may look beyond the section 170.6 affidavit or oral statement and inquire into the legitimacy of the party’s assertions of prejudice.”
Oral or Written
Sec. 170.6(a)(2) specifies that a challenge may be made by “an oral or written motion.” Tapia’s general order, correspondingly, calls for a “written declaration or oral attestation” disclosing past challenges.
It says the disclosure “shall include: (1) the case name and case number of all cases in which that party has made a section 170.6 challenge to the challenged judge within the previous year, together with a reasonable approximation of the total number of cases that party has had assigned to the challenged judge within the previous year; and (2) for parties represented by an attorney, the case name and case number of all cases in which the attorney has made a section 170.6 challenge to the challenged judge within the previous year, together with a reasonable approximation of the total number of cases that attorney has had assigned to the challenged judge within the previous year. For confidential and/or sealed cases, only the case number is required.”
The order continues:
“The written declaration or oral attestation shall be provided contemporaneously with the making of the Section 170.6 challenge, unless the Court finds good cause to extend this deadline, in which case a written declaration complying with this order shall be filed and served not later than the end of the next court day.”
It adds that, pursuant to §170.6(a)(3), “the party or attorney making the 170.6 challenge shall serve notice of the Section 170.6 challenge on all parties together with the declaration complying with this order as soon as practicable, but no later than five days after making the Section 170.6 challenge,” excerpt that “[i]f all parties to the action or their attorney are present in court when an oral challenge is made, no further service shall be necessary.”
Any objection to the challenge, the order says, “shall be made within a reasonable time of notice of the Section 170.6 challenge.”
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