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 1966 / Served to 1986

Margaret J. Morris

Associate Justice, California Court of Appeal

Margaret J. Morris was an Associate Justice of the California Court of Appeal, who joined the court in 1966. Opinions & record ↓ Sources ↓

Tenure: 1966–1986 · 20 yrs

Judicial service

Year	Court	Appointed by	Vote
1966	California Court of Appeal	–	–
1976	California Court of Appeal	–	–
1982	California Court of Appeal	–	–

Judicial Record

In our data, Morris authored 109 published opinions for the court (1976–1986), plus 4 dissents and 2 concurrences. Most cited: Citizens Ass'n for Sensible Development of Bishop Area v. County of Inyo (115 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. 115 of these were attributed to Morris 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
1985	Citizens Ass'n for Sensible Development of Bishop Area v. County of Inyo†	172 Cal. App. 3d 151	115
1977	Bowden v. Robinson†	67 Cal. App. 3d 705	77
1977	People v. Condley†	69 Cal. App. 3d 999	73
1979	People v. Flores†	92 Cal. App. 3d 461	71
1984	San Bernardino Valley Audubon Society, Inc. v. County of San Bernardino†	155 Cal. App. 3d 738	62
1981	Santiago County Water District v. County of Orange†	118 Cal. App. 3d 818	59
1977	Hicks v. Bd. of Supervisors of Orange Cty.†	69 Cal. App. 3d 228	58
1982	E. L. White, Inc. v. City of Huntington Beach†	138 Cal. App. 3d 366	56
1976	United Services Automobile Assn. v. Warner†	64 Cal. App. 3d 957	51
1984	United Steelworkers of America v. Board of Education†	162 Cal. App. 3d 823	47
1982	Village Laguna of Laguna Beach, Inc. v. Board of Supervisors†	134 Cal. App. 3d 1022	47
1985	People v. McAlister†	167 Cal. App. 3d 633	43
1985	Skyline Homes, Inc. v. Department of Industrial Relations†	165 Cal. App. 3d 239	40
1984	Conservatorship of Baber†	153 Cal. App. 3d 542	34
1978	People v. Cindy E.†	83 Cal. App. 3d 393	31

Showing the 15 most-cited of 115 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 Margaret J. Morris on?: Margaret J. Morris 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

See something wrong? Report an error. Fixes are logged in the corrections log.

20 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).