Statewide — California Courts of Appeal retention, judge by judge

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Per-judge retention calls inside

The ballot

California's Courts of Appeal justices reach the bench by gubernatorial nomination, an evaluation by the Commission on Judicial Nominees Evaluation (JNE), and confirmation by the Commission on Judicial Appointments. They then stand before the voters of their district — the ballot asks, justice by justice, "Shall Associate Justice [name] be elected to the office for the term provided by law?" A YES majority confirms the justice for the term; a NO majority creates a vacancy filled the same way. "(Special)" in the table marks a justice standing at the first election after a mid-term appointment to a vacancy, California's equivalent of a first retention vote. The election is November 3, 2026.

62 names are on the compiled statewide roster — the largest retention slate in this series. Three of them are successor nominees standing in place of retiring incumbents, and they are named as such in the table: David Sapp (for Ronald Robie, District 3), Lisa R. Rodriguez (for Terry B. O'Rourke, District 4, Division 1), and Frederick S. Chung (for Adrienne M. Grover, District 6). One compilation artifact is printed rather than silently fixed: the roster lists a David M. Rubin in District 4, Division 1 and a David Rubin in District 4, Division 3 — the same justice's name carried in two divisions in the compilation this roster is drawn from. Both entries are tabled as compiled; your ballot shows the seat for your district and division only, and it is the controlling document.

The honest gap, stated the same way as in our California Supreme Court guide: California publishes no official performance evaluations and no retention recommendations for sitting appellate justices. Every justice below was JNE-screened and confirmed before taking the bench; after that, the public record is opinions, news coverage, and the Secretary of State's voter-guide statements. Our research worked those sources symmetrically across all 62 names: no disciplinary record, no ethics finding, and no organized retain-or-remove campaign against any individual justice on this slate surfaced anywhere in that research. Where that is the whole record, we say so rather than dressing it up.

The 62 justices

"On the bench since" is the year the justice first stood for / took the seat per the compiled roster. Appointing governors are not printed per judge: for a 62-name slate drawn from a compilation, printing 62 governor attributions we could not individually verify against appointment records would violate this page's no-source-no-claim rule. The pattern is a matter of public record — the longest-serving names (Yegan, 1990; Simons, 2001; Banke, 2009) predate the current administration, and the large recent classes are nominees of Governor Gavin Newsom, each JNE-evaluated and confirmed before seating.

| Justice | District / Division | On the bench since | Evaluation | Our call | |---|---|---|---|---| | Charles A. Smiley | District 1, Division 1 (special) | 2025 | No official evaluation (none exists in CA) | Retain | | Kathleen M. Banke | District 1, Division 1 | 2009 | No official evaluation (none exists in CA) | Retain | | Monique Langhorne Wilson | District 1, Division 1 (special) | 2024 | No official evaluation (none exists in CA) | Retain | | Tara M. Desautels | District 1, Division 2 | 2024 | No official evaluation (none exists in CA) | Retain | | Theresa M. Stewart | District 1, Division 2 | 2014 | No official evaluation (none exists in CA) | Retain | | Victor Rodriguez | District 1, Division 3 | 2021 | No official evaluation (none exists in CA) | Retain | | Ioana Petrou | District 1, Division 3 | 2018 | No official evaluation (none exists in CA) | Retain | | Tracie L. Brown | District 1, Division 4 | 2018 | No official evaluation (none exists in CA) | Retain | | Mark Simons | District 1, Division 5 | 2001 | No official evaluation (none exists in CA) | Retain | | Danny Y. Chou | District 1, Division 5 (special) | 2023 | No official evaluation (none exists in CA) | Retain | | Gordon B. Burns | District 1, Division 5 | 2018 | No official evaluation (none exists in CA) | Retain | | Michelle C. Kim | District 2, Division 1 (special) | 2024 | No official evaluation (none exists in CA) | Retain | | Gregory J. Weingart | District 2, Division 1 | 2022 | No official evaluation (none exists in CA) | Retain | | Anne Richardson | District 2, Division 2 | 2024 | No official evaluation (none exists in CA) | Retain | | Stephen Goorvitch | District 2, Division 2 (special) | 2026 | No official evaluation (none exists in CA) | Retain | | Mark K. Hanasono | District 2, Division 3 (special) | 2025 | No official evaluation (none exists in CA) | Retain | | Rashida A. Adams | District 2, Division 3 | 2023 | No official evaluation (none exists in CA) | Retain | | Nicholas Daum | District 2, Division 4 (special) | 2026 | No official evaluation (none exists in CA) | Retain | | Armen Tamzarian | District 2, Division 4 (special) | 2025 | No official evaluation (none exists in CA) | Retain | | Audra M. Mori | District 2, Division 4 (special) | 2023 | No official evaluation (none exists in CA) | Retain | | Helen Zukin | District 2, Division 4 (special) | 2023 | No official evaluation (none exists in CA) | Retain | | Brian M. Hoffstadt | District 2, Division 5 (special) | 2024 | No official evaluation (none exists in CA) | Retain | | Kenneth R. Yegan | District 2, Division 6 | 1990 | No official evaluation (none exists in CA) | Retain | | Tari L. Cody | District 2, Division 6 (special) | 2023 | No official evaluation (none exists in CA) | Retain | | Gonzalo Martinez | District 2, Division 7 | 2023 | No official evaluation (none exists in CA) | Retain | | Natalie P. Stone | District 2, Division 7 | 2024 | No official evaluation (none exists in CA) | Retain | | Victor Viramontes | District 2, Division 8 | 2022 | No official evaluation (none exists in CA) | Retain | | John Shepard Wiley Jr. | District 2, Division 8 | 2018 | No official evaluation (none exists in CA) | Retain | | Matthew Scherb | District 2, Division 8 (special) | 2025 | No official evaluation (none exists in CA) | Retain | | Aimee Feinberg | District 3 | 2024 | No official evaluation (none exists in CA) | Retain | | Jonathan K. Renner | District 3 | 2014 | No official evaluation (none exists in CA) | Retain | | Lauri Damrell | District 3 (special) | 2026 | No official evaluation (none exists in CA) | Retain | | Laurie M. Earl | District 3 (special) | 2022 | No official evaluation (none exists in CA) | Retain | | David Sapp | District 3 (special) — successor to retiring Justice Ronald Robie | 2026 | No official evaluation (none exists in CA) | Retain | | Shama Haki Mesiwala | District 3 (special) | 2023 | No official evaluation (none exists in CA) | Retain | | Stacy Boulware Eurie | District 3 | 2022 | No official evaluation (none exists in CA) | Retain | | David M. Rubin | District 4, Division 1 | 2023 | No official evaluation (none exists in CA) | Retain | | Eran Marie Bermudez | District 4, Division 1 (special) | 2026 | No official evaluation (none exists in CA) | Retain | | Jose S. Castillo | District 4, Division 1 (special) | 2023 | No official evaluation (none exists in CA) | Retain | | Julia C. Kelety | District 4, Division 1 | 2023 | No official evaluation (none exists in CA) | Retain | | Lisa R. Rodriguez | District 4, Division 1 — successor to retiring Justice Terry B. O'Rourke | 2026 | No official evaluation (none exists in CA) | Retain | | Truc T. Do | District 4, Division 1 | 2021 | No official evaluation (none exists in CA) | Retain | | William S. Dato | District 4, Division 1 | 2016 | No official evaluation (none exists in CA) | Retain | | Corey Lee | District 4, Division 2 (special) | 2025 | No official evaluation (none exists in CA) | Retain | | Michael J. Raphael | District 4, Division 2 | 2018 | No official evaluation (none exists in CA) | Retain | | David Rubin | District 4, Division 3 (special) | 2023 | No official evaluation (none exists in CA) | Retain | | Nathan Scott | District 4, Division 3 (special) | 2025 | No official evaluation (none exists in CA) | Retain | | Joanne Motoike | District 4, Division 3 | 2022 | No official evaluation (none exists in CA) | Retain | | Deborah C. Servino | District 4, Division 3 (special) | 2026 | No official evaluation (none exists in CA) | Retain | | Thomas Delaney | District 4, Division 3 (special) | 2022 | No official evaluation (none exists in CA) | Retain | | Martha K. Gooding | District 4, Division 3 | 2023 | No official evaluation (none exists in CA) | Retain | | Kathleen Meehan | District 5 | 2017 | No official evaluation (none exists in CA) | Retain | | Mark W. Snauffer | District 5 | 2018 | No official evaluation (none exists in CA) | Retain | | Thomas DeSantos | District 5 | 2018 | No official evaluation (none exists in CA) | Retain | | Arlan L. Harrell | District 5 (special) | 2025 | No official evaluation (none exists in CA) | Retain | | Amy Guerra | District 5 (special) | 2026 | No official evaluation (none exists in CA) | Retain | | Sonny S. Sandhu | District 5 (special) | 2026 | No official evaluation (none exists in CA) | Retain | | Charles E. Wilson | District 6 | 2021 | No official evaluation (none exists in CA) | Retain | | Daniel Bromberg | District 6 | 2023 | No official evaluation (none exists in CA) | Retain | | Frederick S. Chung | District 6 — successor to retiring Justice Adrienne M. Grover | 2026 | No official evaluation (none exists in CA) | Retain | | Allison M. Danner | District 6 | 2018 | No official evaluation (none exists in CA) | Retain | | Charles Adams | District 6 | 2026 | No official evaluation (none exists in CA) | Retain |

What the record shows, grouped

The long-service justices. Kenneth R. Yegan (District 2, since 1990), Mark Simons (District 1, since 2001) and Kathleen M. Banke (District 1, since 2009) have each been confirmed by the voters before and carry decades of published appellate work. No adverse record surfaced against any of them.

The mid-service classes (2014–2022). Theresa M. Stewart, Jonathan K. Renner, William S. Dato, Kathleen Meehan, Ioana Petrou, Tracie L. Brown, Gordon B. Burns, John Shepard Wiley Jr., Mark W. Snauffer, Thomas DeSantos, Michael J. Raphael and Allison M. Danner (2014–2018), and Victor Rodriguez, Truc T. Do and Charles E. Wilson (2021) and the 2022 class (Gregory J. Weingart, Victor Viramontes, Laurie M. Earl, Stacy Boulware Eurie, Joanne Motoike, Thomas Delaney) — all JNE-screened at appointment, all with published opinions on the public record, none with a disciplinary record or an organized campaign against them in our research.

The newest justices (2023–2026). The remaining names — including the three successor nominees Sapp, Rodriguez and Chung — are in their first term, most in their first years on this court. Their records are necessarily shorter: a JNE evaluation and confirmation, plus the opinions they have joined or written so far. That is a thinner file than a twenty-year record, and we print it as thinner — but a short record is unproven, not a demerit, under the same standard this page applies to every candidate. No sourced adverse record exists against any of them either.

Dirt, stated plainly: across 62 symmetric searches, the dirt column for this slate is empty — no misconduct findings, no discipline, no organized opposition with evidence behind it. A guide that invents distinctions among 62 judges on no evidence would be manufacturing news. The honest finding is the uniform one.

OUR CALL

Our rule: Retain is the verdict for a judge with a serviceable documented record; removal requires proven cause — documented misconduct, proven activist judging that breaks faith with the law, or an evaluation failure. California runs no evaluation program, so no evaluation failure exists to price; and after a symmetric deep pass over the Secretary of State's voter guide, court sources, the compiled roster and news coverage, no proven cause exists against any name on this slate.

Retain: Charles A. Smiley, Kathleen M. Banke, Monique Langhorne Wilson, Tara M. Desautels, Theresa M. Stewart, Victor Rodriguez, Ioana Petrou, Tracie L. Brown, Mark Simons, Danny Y. Chou, Gordon B. Burns, Michelle C. Kim, Gregory J. Weingart, Anne Richardson, Stephen Goorvitch, Mark K. Hanasono, Rashida A. Adams, Nicholas Daum, Armen Tamzarian, Audra M. Mori, Helen Zukin, Brian M. Hoffstadt, Kenneth R. Yegan, Tari L. Cody, Gonzalo Martinez, Natalie P. Stone, Victor Viramontes, John Shepard Wiley Jr., Matthew Scherb, Aimee Feinberg, Jonathan K. Renner, Lauri Damrell, Laurie M. Earl, David Sapp, Shama Haki Mesiwala, Stacy Boulware Eurie, David M. Rubin, Eran Marie Bermudez, Jose S. Castillo, Julia C. Kelety, Lisa R. Rodriguez, Truc T. Do, William S. Dato, Corey Lee, Michael J. Raphael, David Rubin, Nathan Scott, Joanne Motoike, Deborah C. Servino, Thomas Delaney, Martha K. Gooding, Kathleen Meehan, Mark W. Snauffer, Thomas DeSantos, Arlan L. Harrell, Amy Guerra, Sonny S. Sandhu, Charles E. Wilson, Daniel Bromberg, Frederick S. Chung, Allison M. Danner, Charles Adams. Do not retain: none. No verdict: none — the absence of an adverse record after a documented symmetric search, combined with JNE screening and confirmation for every name, is the record this call rests on, and it is printed here so any voter can re-run it.

For the complete Election 2026 breakdown — every race, claim by claim — see the full coverage on our website. Vote early. Research your candidates. Choose the best moderates, whatever their party — no extremism from either side. And encourage your friends and family to do the same. --- Sources - 2026 United States judicial elections (compilation citing Ballotpedia "State judicial elections, 2026") — full 62-name roster with district, division and first-stood years; successor and duplicate entries as compiled — https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2026_United_States_judicial_elections - California Secretary of State — Official Voter Information Guide, appellate justices — https://voterguide.sos.ca.gov/justices/supreme-court-justices/ - California Courts — Commission on Judicial Nominees Evaluation (JNE) process (screening and rating of every gubernatorial nominee before confirmation) — https://www.courts.ca.gov/5362.htm - Down-ballot inventory, California Courts of Appeal retention row (62 seats; successor candidates Sapp, Chung, Rodriguez; David Rubin double-listing flagged) — ~/workspace/voter-guide-research/inventory/down-ballot/down_ballot.csv

AI-assisted article — but the sources are human, and the facts are very real.

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