Interesting cases

Here's an interesting opinion from 2/8: 

We hold that the Victims’ Bill of Rights in the California Constitution (art. I, § 28), as amended in 2008 by Proposition 9 (Marsy’s Law or section 28) does not authorize a victim to appeal from a judgment or order in a criminal case. 

We know, of course, that criminal restitution is an entirely independent constitutional right, but it is available only for losses resulting from crimes of which the defendant has been convicted. Victims may seek writ review, as petitioners did here, when they believe a trial court has failed to follow that constitutionally mandated principle.

Also from 2/8, an interesting case here, with a lesson for counsel: Don't assume the court knows what you know.

The first problem is that the record contains Montchak’s Twitter tweets, retweets, and pinned tweets. But what are tweets, retweets, and pinned tweets, exactly? The record does not say. (Compare People v. Stamps (2016) 3 Cal.App.5th 988, 996–997 & fn. 6 & 7 [internet data presumptively is unreliable and inadmissible] with People v. Espinoza (2018) 23 Cal.App.5th 317, 320–322 [proper foundations can make some internet evidence admissible under some circumstances].) A court cannot judicially notice how Twitter works. Facts of generalized knowledge cannot be judicially noticed unless they are so universally known they cannot reasonably be disputed. (See Evid. Code § 451, subd. (f).)