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 / Active

Patricia Bamattre-Manoukian

Chief Justice, California Court of Appeal

Patricia Bamattre-Manoukian is a Chief Justice of the California Court of Appeal, serving since 1989. She previously served on the Municipal Court of California, County of Orange, Municipal Court of California, County of Santa Clara and Superior Court of California, County of Santa Clara. Opinions & record ↓ Sources ↓

Born: 1950 · age 76
Tenure: Since 1989 · 36 yrs
Education: University of California-Los Angeles 1972

Judicial service

Year	Court	Appointed by	Vote
1983	Municipal Court of California, County of Orange	–	–
1985	Municipal Court of California, County of Santa Clara	–	–
1988	Superior Court of California, County of Santa Clara	–	–
1989	California Court of Appeal	–	–
2001	California Court of Appeal	–	–
2003	California Court of Appeal	–	–

Education

University of California-Los Angeles	B.A. Political Science, B.A. Psychology	1972
University of Southern California	M.P.A. in Public Administration	1974
Loyola Marymount University		1977
University of Southern California	Ph.D. in Public Administration	1989

Judicial Record

In our data, Bamattre-Manoukian authored 131 published opinions for the court (1990–2017), plus 2 dissents and 9 concurrences. Most cited: In Re Marriage of Nadkarni (164 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. 142 of these were attributed to Bamattre-Manoukian 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	In Re Marriage of Nadkarni†	173 Cal. App. 4th 1483	164
2001	Save Our Peninsula Committee v. Monterey County Board of Supervisors†	104 Cal. Rptr. 2d 326	154
1994	Martin v. Lockheed Missiles & Space Co.†	29 Cal. App. 4th 1718	145
2001	Wershba v. Apple Computer, Inc.†	110 Cal. Rptr. 2d 145	128
1999	People v. Martinez†	84 Cal. Rptr. 2d 638	125
1991	CAMSI IV v. Hunter Technology Corp.†	230 Cal. App. 3d 1525	111
2010	People v. Leon†	181 Cal. App. 4th 943	90
2001	People v. Zepeda†	105 Cal. Rptr. 2d 187	90
1991	Shapell Industries, Inc. v. Governing Board†	1 Cal. App. 4th 218	84
2014	Nevarez v. Tonna†	227 Cal. App. 4th 774	80
2006	People v. Tuyen Thanh Le†	39 Cal. Rptr. 3d 146	77
2014	People v. Van Ngo· Concurrence†	225 Cal. App. 4th 126	75
1992	People v. Gilbert†	5 Cal. App. 4th 1372	75
1997	People v. Dat Tan Nguyen· Concurrence†	54 Cal. App. 4th 705	71
2001	People v. Hubbart†	106 Cal. Rptr. 2d 490	69

Showing the 15 most-cited of 142 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 Patricia Bamattre-Manoukian on?: Patricia Bamattre-Manoukian is a Chief 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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36 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).