Earl helped steer 3rd District out of years of delays

When Laurie M. Earl joined the 3rd District Court of Appeal in January 2022, the Sacramento court was under fire for leaving cases undecided for years. That June, the Commission on Judicial Performance publicly admonished Presiding Justice Vance W. Raye, and he agreed to step down.

"I would say there was low morale, not only among my judicial colleagues but the staff in general," Earl told the Daily Journal in 2024. "I can't say the criticism was undeserved. We've righted the ship."

Earl, who became administrative presiding justice in July 2023, faces voters in the Nov. 3 retention election for a full 12-year term.

In emailed comments, she said she is proud of helping lead the court "out of the darkness cast by the decisional delays." The court changed how it monitors cases, she said, and no longer carries the backlog that prompted the investigation.

Jon Eisenberg, the retired appellate lawyer whose complaint led to Raye's departure, called the turnaround 'quite remarkable' in 2024, saying most cases were then being set for oral argument three to five months after briefing, compared with as long as years before.

Earl said her job was "to make sure that we don't compromise quality for speed."

Her opinions tend to hold parties to the consequences of agreements and legal rules rather than the labels they give them.

In a dispute over reduced rent at a shopping center, JJD-HOV Elk Grove LLC v. Jo-Ann Stores LLC (2022), Earl rejected the landlord's argument that a lease provision allowing reduced rent after anchor tenants closed was an unenforceable penalty.

"JJD has received precisely the Substitute Rent it agreed to receive, and we find no basis for relieving JJD from the burden of its agreement," she wrote.

A dispute involving a retired public official presented the flip side. In Sandhu v. Board of Administration (2025), Earl upheld a CalPERS finding that a retiree who filled vacant posts for four cities was their employee despite contracts calling him an independent contractor. Labels do not control when the parties' conduct shows otherwise, she wrote.

She also dismissed his reliance on a California Supreme Court dissent: "A dissent, of course, is just that -- a dissent."

Earl started her career as a Sacramento County assistant public defender in 1989, moving to the district attorney's office in 1995.

Earl and then-Deputy District Attorney Anne Marie Schubert filed what Earl has described as California's first "John Doe" prosecution, charging an unknown rapist identified only by his DNA profile before the statute of limitations expired. The DNA was later matched to a suspect, and the California Supreme Court upheld the approach.

"We figured we had nothing to lose," Earl said in 2016.

Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger appointed Earl to the Sacramento County Superior Court in 2005. Earl later moved to juvenile dependency court, work she described as "emotional, draining, exhausting, but also very rewarding."

Melissa Banda, a Children's Law Center of California attorney who appeared before her, said in 2016, "Parents don't come out of her courtroom feeling like they're the worst person in the world because they lost their kid."

As presiding judge during the Great Recession budget cuts, Earl helped develop a new formula for allocating funding among California's 58 trial courts. The work earned her the Judicial Council's Ronald M. George Award for Judicial Excellence in 2013.

Her trial court docket included politically charged disputes. In 2021, Earl rejected an attempt by Gov. Gavin Newsom recall backers to remove from the voter guide his description of it as a Republican power grab, ruling that although "reasonable minds may disagree on the propriety of the recall," the statement fell "within the realm of legitimate political debate."

She earned her law degree from Lincoln Law School of Sacramento, where she teaches criminal law.

Her advice to lawyers has remained simple since her early years on the bench: "You don't need to fight over everything; make your point and move on. Don't sweat the small stuff."