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 1988 / Served to 2013

James J. Marchiano

Presiding Justice, California Court of Appeal

James J. Marchiano was a Presiding Justice of the California Court of Appeal, who joined the court in 1988. Opinions & record ↓ Sources ↓

Tenure: 1988–2013 · 24 yrs

Judicial service

Year	Court	Appointed by	Vote
1988	California Court of Appeal	–	–
2002	California Court of Appeal	–	–

Judicial Record

In our data, Marchiano authored 100 published opinions for the court (1999–2013), plus 3 concurrences. Most cited: Komarova v. National Credit Acceptance, Inc. (75 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. 26 of these were attributed to Marchiano by a unique court-, date-, and surname-match against our roster (marked ), because CourtListener recorded no author for them. Each links to the official text to verify. How we match.

Selected opinions

Year	Case	Citation	Cited
2009	Komarova v. National Credit Acceptance, Inc.	175 Cal. App. 4th 324	75
2008	People v. Bordelon	162 Cal. App. 4th 1311	68
2012	People v. Mehserle†	206 Cal. App. 4th 1125	67
2010	People v. D.G.· Concurrence†	187 Cal. App. 4th 47	60
2005	In Re Firearm Cases†	24 Cal. Rptr. 3d 659	48
2007	People v. Strasburg	56 Cal. Rptr. 3d 306	45
1999	Holmes v. Lerner	88 Cal. Rptr. 2d 130	44
2007	Murphy v. Check 'N Go of California, Inc.	67 Cal. Rptr. 3d 120	40
2005	Klussman v. Cross Country Bank	36 Cal. Rptr. 3d 728	38
2003	Communities for a Better Environment v. State Water Resources Control Board	1 Cal. Rptr. 3d 76	37
2008	Crowley Maritime Corp. v. Boston Old Colony Ins.†	158 Cal. App. 4th 1061	36
2006	Morris v. AGFA CORP.	51 Cal. Rptr. 3d 301	36
2003	Hartford Casualty Insurance v. Travelers Indemnity Co.	2 Cal. Rptr. 3d 18	36
2011	Desert Outdoor Advertising v. Superior Court†	196 Cal. App. 4th 866	35
2006	Dunbar v. ALBERTSON'S, INC.	47 Cal. Rptr. 3d 83	35

Showing the 15 most-cited of 103 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 James J. Marchiano on?: James J. Marchiano was a Presiding Justice of the California Court of Appeal.

Sources

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

How we source & reconcile data → Data & Sources

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24 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).