Justice Tari L. Cody

Blogger Daniel Faigin's ballot analysis recommends retaining Cody, finding nothing disqualifying. His discussion is drawn explicitly from 'Google AI' output.

• Conclusion: Retain (Yes): 'None of this is a reason for disqualification.'
• Reports, from Google AI, no ethical scandals or discipline, an 'exceptionally well qualified' JNE rating, and her August 2026 confirmation as the first woman to preside over Division Six.
• Notes her long juvenile and family-law background on the Ventura bench.

Reform California's Los Angeles County voter guide recommends DO NOT RETAIN for Cody, as it does for 30 of the 33 Second District justices it lists. No reasons are given.

• Cody: DO NOT RETAIN.
• Only Victoria Chavez, Frances Rothschild, and Kenneth Yegan get RETAIN in the Second District.
• Also recommends DO NOT RETAIN for both Supreme Court justices.

The Secretary of State's official guide lists Tari L. Cody, Presiding Justice, Division Six, among the Second District justices on the Nov. 3, 2026 retention ballot. It gives names and divisions only.

• Cody is listed as Presiding Justice of Division Six, with Associate Justice Kenneth R. Yegan.
• No qualifications, ratings, or arguments appear on this page.

The court's published-opinion listings for October 2024 to October 2026 show 11 opinions Cody authored and 4 separate opinions: three concurrences (People v. Garcia and both versions of Pacho Limited Partnership v. Eureka Energy Co., the original and the opinion on rehearing) and one concurring and dissenting opinion (People v. Wilson). By case name, the authored opinions include five criminal appeals, one juvenile case, and five civil cases, including suits involving a county agency, an insurer, and a country club.

• Authored: 11; separate: 4 (3 concurrences, 1 concurring and dissenting), with Pacho counted twice.
• Most recent authored: People v. Perkins (2026-10-20); earliest: C.C. v. L.B. (2024-11-26).
• Covers published opinions only; most appellate decisions are unpublished and do not appear.

Cody's majority opinion affirms a sentence of 27 years and eight months after a second judge granted a Romero motion to strike one prior strike that a first judge had denied. The People forfeited their objection to the second judge hearing the motion by not raising it below, and the strike dismissal was within the court's discretion. Justice Yegan dissented, warning the ruling invites judge shopping.

• Declines to excuse the People's forfeiture because a timely objection could have let the court or defendant adjust; silence would let the People win either way.
• Says the ruling leaves the rules on judicial reconsideration (People v. Sons) undisturbed.
• Upholds the strike dismissal: an old, nonviolent burglary at age 19, a first violent felony, and a thorough explanation by the trial court; distinguishes People v. Vasquez.
• Yegan dissent: one superior court judge should not overrule another; would send the matter back to the first judge.

Cody's unanimous opinion affirms a $20,000 restitution order for a rape victim's lost university scholarship. It holds the U.S. Supreme Court's 2026 Ellingburg decision, which treated federal MVRA restitution as punishment, does not give California defendants a jury right on restitution, because California restitution is compensatory and has no statutory maximum; in any event the defendant waived a jury.

• Compares California's section 1202.4 with the federal MVRA feature by feature and finds no punitive intent.
• Reaches the merits despite forfeiture because Ellingburg postdated the hearing.
• Treats the lost scholarship like lost future wages; declines to offset the $6,000 first-year award.
• Upholds a stipulated stay of interest accrual, rejecting the People's unauthorized-sentence argument.

Cody wrote a short published majority opinion reversing the adult-court transfer of J.C., who was 15 at the time of two 2009 gang murders and 19 when indicted. Applying Welf. & Inst. Code § 707(a)(2) as amended by SB 1391, the court accepted the People's concession that he was apprehended within juvenile jurisdiction and could not be transferred.

• Holding: SB 1391 bars transfer of 14- and 15-year-old offenders unless they were apprehended after juvenile jurisdiction ended; J.C. was not.
• The opinion traces the case through Proposition 57, SB 1391, and AB 2361 and relies on O.G. v. Superior Court (2021), which upheld the statute.
• It does not reach J.C.'s alternative argument, given the concession.
• Yegan dissented, saying release of a 31-year-old who admitted two murders 'potentially puts the community at risk and is unacceptable.'

Writing for Division Six, Cody rejected facial Second Amendment challenges to California's bans on assault weapons, short-barreled shotguns, large-capacity magazines, and silencers, and to its dealer-transfer requirement, affirming Dylan Hardy's convictions.

• Assault weapons and short-barreled shotguns: not protected 'arms' under Heller's common-use test, relying on Miller, Heller's M-16 dictum, and prior California cases.
• Large-capacity magazines and silencers: accessories, not 'arms', following the Ninth Circuit's Duncan v. Bonta (2025).
• Dealer-transfer rule (§ 27545): fees under $50 and travel are not a 'meaningful constraint' under the ancillary-rights doctrine.
• Refused to consider survey and statistical data outside the trial record, and treated a one-paragraph preemption argument as forfeited.

On rehearing, the majority (Yegan, J., with Gilbert, P.J.) again reverses the ruling that limited the Wild Cherry Canyon lease to 51 years, now framing the case through anti-forfeiture rules. Cody again concurs only in the result, adding that she "would reverse without reaching the issue of forfeiture": section 717 governs a lease's terms, and this "any lawful purpose" lease creates no agricultural perpetuity.

• Majority adds that the parties understood the land would be grazed for fire prevention, and that respondent "has missed the forest."
• Cody's revised concurrence states plainly: "Section 717 governs the purpose of a lease—not how the leased property is used."
• She notes respondents did not dispute that the lease allows nonagricultural use.

Gilbert's majority affirms a 118-years-to-life robbery conviction, holding a prosecutor's peremptory strike of a timid, inexperienced juror complied with Code of Civil Procedure section 231.7 and disapproving the division's own 2024 Uriostegui decision. Cody concurs that the strike was valid but writes that Uriostegui is distinguishable and should not be disapproved: there, presumptively invalid reasons were never rebutted, while here the court confirmed the demeanor in plain English. Yegan separately concurs that the statute's automatic-prejudice rule is unconstitutional.

• Cody: section 231.7 findings "need not take a particular form" but "must exist, and appellate courts cannot impute them."
• Cody: the court is "not tasked with adjudicating" the statute's efficacy.
• Majority notes the Attorney General conceded error and calls the concession too easy; the San Luis Obispo District Attorney filed as amicus.

The majority (Yegan, J., with Gilbert, P.J.) reverses a ruling that voided a 99-year lease of 2,400 acres at Wild Cherry Canyon after 51 years under Civil Code section 717, holding that grazing about 111 cattle for fire prevention did not make it an agricultural lease and the ruling worked a $39 million forfeiture. Cody concurs in the result but rejects the use-based reasoning: section 717 targets the lease's terms, and an "any lawful purpose" lease cannot be agricultural regardless of how the land is used.

• Cody traces the 1895 amendment from "agricultural land" to "land for agricultural purposes" to argue the statute looks to the lease's purpose, not the land's use.
• She faults the trial court for using extrinsic evidence to read the lease's express terms.
• She warns the majority's approach could let lessors revisit the lease as grazing grows (200 head in 2045, 300 in 2075).

Published criminal appeal affirming Gregory Wilson's human-trafficking and kidnapping convictions (opinion by Yegan, J., joined by Gilbert, P. J.). Cody concurred in part and dissented: she would hold that the prosecutor's repeated description of the Black defendant as a "gorilla pimp" in closing argument violated the Racial Justice Act, accept the People's concession that counsel was ineffective for not objecting, and reverse.

• Majority: by not objecting, Wilson forfeited the RJA claim; counsel was not ineffective as a matter of law on this record, and the claim belongs in habeas corpus.
• Majority: "gorilla pimp" is a sex-trade term of art for a pimp who uses force; the prosecutor never compared Wilson to an actual gorilla.
• Cody: the term is animal imagery that appeals to racial bias, fits neither RJA exception (relating another's words, neutral physical description), and was used three times to persuade the jury.
• Cody: no reasonable tactic justified the failure to object; she would follow the division's own People v. Simmons (2023) and reverse without harmless-error analysis.
• Cody joins the rest of the majority opinion (sufficiency of evidence, sentencing, section 654).

MetNews reports that the commission approved Cody's elevation to presiding justice of Division Six, which hears appeals from Ventura, Santa Barbara, and San Luis Obispo counties.

• She has sat on Division Six since 2023.
• Commission: Chief Justice Patricia Guerrero, Attorney General Rob Bonta, and Administrative Presiding Justice Elwood Lui.

A judicial-branch news item reports the commission's approval of Cody's elevation from associate justice to presiding justice of the Second District.

• Approved by the Commission on Judicial Appointments (called 'Commission on Judicial Nominations' in the item).

The court's biography says Cody was confirmed to Division Six as an associate justice in 2023 and as Presiding Justice in 2026, after 22 years on the Ventura County Superior Court and a career in private civil practice.

• Appointed by Gov. Gavin Newsom; rated "exceptionally well qualified" by the Judicial Nominees Evaluation Commission.
• Trial judge for 22 years (appointed by Gov. Gray Davis) across family, civil, criminal, probate, and juvenile matters; served as Supervising Juvenile Judge.
• Co-chairs the Judicial Council's Family and Juvenile Law Advisory Committee.
• Before the bench, a partner at Oxnard and Westlake Village law firms.