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 2009 / Served to 2020

Jeffrey W. Johnson

Associate Justice, California Court of Appeal

Jeffrey W. Johnson was an Associate Justice of the California Court of Appeal, who joined the court in 2009. They previously served on the U.S. District Court for the Central District of California. Opinions & record ↓ Sources ↓

Tenure: 2009–2020 · 10 yrs

Judicial service

Year	Court	Appointed by	Vote
1999	Central District of California	District court	–
2007	Central District of California	District court	–
2009	California Court of Appeal	–	–

Education

Duke University		1982
Yale University		1985

Judicial Record

In our data, Johnson authored 106 published opinions for the court (2010–2018), plus 2 dissents and 2 concurrences. Most cited: Prakashpalan v. Engstrom, Lipscomb & Lack (150 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. 94 of these were attributed to Johnson 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
2014	Prakashpalan v. Engstrom, Lipscomb & Lack†	223 Cal. App. 4th 1105	150
2010	People v. King	183 Cal. App. 4th 1281	130
2015	People v. Sedillo†	235 Cal. App. 4th 1037	114
2013	The People v. Fernandez†	216 Cal. App. 4th 540	114
2017	Featherstone v. Southern California Permanente Medical Group†	10 Cal. App. 5th 1150	91
2017	Optional Capital, Inc. v. Akin Gump Strauss, Hauer & Feld LLP†	226 Cal. Rptr. 3d 246	89
2010	Jaimez v. Daiohs USA, Inc.	181 Cal. App. 4th 1286	86
2013	Ellis v. Toshiba America Information Systems., Inc.†	218 Cal. App. 4th 853	78
2013	Los Angeles County Department of Children & Family Services v. John M.†	217 Cal. App. 4th 410	78
2013	Los Angeles County Deparment of Children & Family Services v. Emma M.†	213 Cal. App. 4th 358	73
2017	Okorie v. L. A. Unified Sch. Dist.†	222 Cal. Rptr. 3d 475	71
2013	Rope v. Auto-Chlor System of Washington, Inc.†	220 Cal. App. 4th 635	60
2011	Fossum v. Fossum†	192 Cal. App. 4th 336	57
2016	Heidi S. v. David H.†	1 Cal. App. 5th 1150	56
2011	People v. Hernandez†	200 Cal. App. 4th 953	55

Showing the 15 most-cited of 110 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 Jeffrey W. Johnson on?: Jeffrey W. Johnson was an Associate 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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10 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).