How do judges of the California Court of Appeal reach the bench?

The court's current selection method is merit selection with retention.

California Court of Appeal / Joined 1989 / Served to 1994

Fred K. Morrison

Justice, California Court of Appeal

Fred K. Morrison was a Justice of the California Court of Appeal, who joined the court in 1989. Opinions & record ↓ Sources ↓

Tenure: 1989–1994 · 5 yrs

Judicial service

Year	Court	Appointed by	Vote
1989	California Court of Appeal	–	–

Judicial Record

In our data, Morrison authored 157 published opinions for the court (1994–2009). Most cited: Paterno v. State (379 citations).

Published, precedential opinions from the CourtListener corpus. Counts and rankings are objective and recomputable: how we count. We describe the record, not the judge.

Selected opinions

Year	Case	Citation	Cited
1999	Paterno v. State	87 Cal. Rptr. 2d 754	379
1998	People v. Harris	60 Cal. App. 4th 727	215
1996	In Re Alysha S.	51 Cal. App. 4th 393	185
1995	Opdyk v. California Horse Racing Board	34 Cal. App. 4th 1826	169
2001	In Re Marinna J.	109 Cal. Rptr. 2d 267	130
1997	People v. Fitch	55 Cal. App. 4th 172	117
2003	People v. Norman	134 Cal. Rptr. 2d 652	115
2002	H. D. Arnaiz Ltd. v. County of San Joaquin	118 Cal. Rptr. 2d 71	107
2008	People v. DeFrance	167 Cal. App. 4th 486	103
2005	Osgood v. Landon	25 Cal. Rptr. 3d 379	103
1995	People v. Cartwright	39 Cal. App. 4th 1123	101
2002	Western Aggregates, Inc. v. County of Yuba	130 Cal. Rptr. 2d 436	84
2003	BROCKET v. Moore	131 Cal. Rptr. 2d 746	83
1995	People v. Sipe	36 Cal. App. 4th 468	81
1995	People v. Thompson	36 Cal. App. 4th 843	74

Showing the 15 most-cited of 157 authored opinions in our data. “Cited” is inbound citations across the CourtListener corpus. Case links open the ruling’s full text (CourtListener) or its page here; read the methodology and verify against the primary source.

Questions & answers

How do judges of the California Court of Appeal reach the bench?: The court's current selection method is merit selection with retention.
Which court was Fred K. Morrison on?: Fred K. Morrison was a Justice of the California Court of Appeal.

Sources

Each fact on this page traces to a primary public record.

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5 years on the California Court of Appeal. Data as of 2026-03-31. Informational only; verify against the primary source before relying. Not a consumer report (FCRA).