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 1947 / Served to 1981

Robert Gardner

Presiding Justice, California Court of Appeal

Robert Gardner was a Presiding Justice of the California Court of Appeal (89 judges, selected by merit selection with retention), who joined the court in 1947. Opinions & record ↓ Sources ↓

Tenure: 1947–1981 · 34 yrs

Judicial service

Year	Court	Appointed by	Vote
1947	California Court of Appeal	–	–
1970	California Court of Appeal	–	–
1970	California Court of Appeal	–	–

Judicial Record

In our data, Gardner authored 108 published opinions for the court (1957–1981), plus 13 dissents and 6 concurrences. Most cited: People v. Johnson (181 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. 127 of these were attributed to Gardner 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
1981	People v. Johnson†	123 Cal. App. 3d 106	181
1974	People v. Lovercamp†	43 Cal. App. 3d 823	172
1977	People v. Lopez†	71 Cal. App. 3d 568	128
1971	People v. Jackson†	18 Cal. App. 3d 504	92
1978	James H. v. Superior Court†	77 Cal. App. 3d 169	82
1975	People v. Morales· Dissent†	49 Cal. App. 3d 134	72
1978	People v. Johnson†	82 Cal. App. 3d 183	64
1980	Allen v. Jones· Concurrence†	104 Cal. App. 3d 207	63
1978	Renteria v. County of Orange†	82 Cal. App. 3d 833	60
1974	People v. Long†	38 Cal. App. 3d 680	58
1978	People Ex Rel. Younger v. Superior Court· Concurrence†	86 Cal. App. 3d 180	53
1975	Aries Development Co. v. California Coastal Zone Conservation Commission· Dissent†	48 Cal. App. 3d 534	47
1975	In Re Moore†	45 Cal. App. 3d 285	46
1972	Blake v. State Personnel Board· Dissent†	25 Cal. App. 3d 541	46
1977	County of San Bernardino v. Doria Mining & Engineering Corp.†	72 Cal. App. 3d 776	45

Showing the 15 most-cited of 127 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 Robert Gardner on?: Robert Gardner 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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34 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).