California attorneys are allowed to run against sitting superior court judges at their retention elections, and have occasionally succeeded in doing so.
The court is organized into dozens of highly specialized departments, dealing with everything from moving violations to mental health.
[2] In contrast, many of California's smallest counties, like Alpine, Del Norte, Inyo, Lake, Lassen, Mono, and Trinity, typically have only two superior court judges each, who are usually assisted by a single part-time commissioner.
Normally, there is "no appearance for respondent", but in certain rare circumstances, the Superior Court does have standing to oppose an application for a writ, and has actually done so.
[15] The council's 1948 study found: "There are six separate and distinct types of inferior courts, totaling 767 in number, created and governed under varied constitutional, statutory, and charter provisions.
[15] Even worse, most inferior courts were not staffed by full-time professional judges; they were presided over on a part-time basis, either by laymen who also operated outside businesses or attorneys in private practice.
[15] Chief Justice Phil S. Gibson remarked that "there are very few lawyers who can correctly name all the types of trial courts in the state, much less give the sources and extent of their jurisdiction.
[16] For the Court Act to become fully effective, a constitutional amendment had to be submitted to the state electorate as Proposition 3, which was duly approved on November 7, 1950.
[17] Starting in the 1970s, California began to slowly phase out the use of justice courts (in which non-lawyers were authorized by statute to preside as judges) after a landmark 1974 decision in which the Supreme Court of California unanimously held that it was a violation of due process to allow a non-lawyer to preside over a criminal trial which could result in incarceration of the defendant.
[19] In response, the Judicial Council of California arranged for the immediate enactment of legislation to upgrade 22 attorneys already sitting as justice court judges from part-time to full-time service and allow them to "ride circuit" and hear such trials in any justice court then presided over by a non-lawyer judge.
[21] In response, the California Law Revision Commission published a comprehensive study in January 1994 which carefully evaluated options for the proposed court's name such as "district", "superior", "county", "trial", "unified", and "circuit", and concluded that the preferable name was "superior court".
[29] Another peculiarity of California law is that traditionally, the superior courts did not own their own buildings or employ their own staff, and the state government was not required to provide them with such things.
[31][32] At the same time, courthouse construction and maintenance were often overlooked among the numerous mandatory responsibilities placed upon counties by California law.
Even worse, because so many of the responsibilities delegated to county governments were of a nature which people were likely to sue over, this arrangement put superior court judges in the awkward position of frequently ruling on lawsuits involving the very county governments responsible for maintaining their courthouses and providing their staff.
[33] The enacting of Proposition 13 by the state electorate in 1978 became a catalyst for reform of trial court funding because it placed California counties into such severe financial distress that they could no longer bear the burden of such a partially-funded mandate.