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 2018 / Active

Mary J. Greenwood

Presiding Justice, California Court of Appeal

Mary J. Greenwood is a Presiding Justice of the California Court of Appeal (89 judges, selected by merit selection with retention), serving since 2018. She previously served on the Superior Court of California, County of Santa Clara. Opinions & record ↓ Sources ↓

Tenure: Since 2018 · 8 yrs

Judicial service

Year	Court	Appointed by	Vote
2012	Superior Court of California, County of Santa Clara	–	–
2018	California Court of Appeal	–	–
2018	California Court of Appeal	–	–
2018	California Court of Appeal	–	–

Education

Grinnell College
UC Law San Francisco

Judicial Record

In our data, Greenwood authored 10 published opinions for the court (2018–2019), plus 1 dissent. Most cited: People v. Jimenez (82 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. 11 of these were attributed to Greenwood 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
2019	People v. Jimenez†	247 Cal. Rptr. 3d 221	82
2019	Severson & Werson, P.C. v. Sepehry-Fard†	249 Cal. Rptr. 3d 839	49
2019	Oliverez v. Oliverez (In re Oliverez)†	245 Cal. Rptr. 3d 119	44
2019	Trolan v. Trolan†	243 Cal. Rptr. 3d 264	34
2019	Jarvis v. Jarvis†	244 Cal. Rptr. 3d 722	17
2019	Brooks v. Brooks (In re Brooks)†	244 Cal. Rptr. 3d 910	15
2019	S.H. v. M.M. (In re C.E.)†	243 Cal. Rptr. 3d 428	10
2019	Look v. Penovatz†	245 Cal. Rptr. 3d 777	7
2019	Zarubin v. Miotke (In re Miotke)†	248 Cal. Rptr. 3d 1	4
2019	Tanimura & Antle Fresh Foods, Inc. v. Salinas Union High Sch. Dist.†	246 Cal. Rptr. 3d 622	4
2018	People v. G.C. (In re G.C.)· Dissent†	237 Cal. Rptr. 3d 783	3

Showing the 11 most-cited of 11 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 is Mary J. Greenwood on?: Mary J. Greenwood is 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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8 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).