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 1976 / Served to 1999

Steven J. Stone

Presiding Justice, California Court of Appeal

Steven J. Stone was a Presiding Justice of the California Court of Appeal, who joined the court in 1976. Opinions & record ↓ Sources ↓

Tenure: 1976–1999 · 22 yrs

Judicial service

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

Judicial Record

In our data, Stone authored 592 published opinions for the court (1957–1999). Most cited: Iverson v. Muroc Unified School District (123 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.

Selected opinions

Year	Case	Citation	Cited
1995	Iverson v. Muroc Unified School District	32 Cal. App. 4th 218	123
1957	People v. Lawrence	149 Cal. App. 2d 435	95
1990	Kings County Farm Bureau v. City of Hanford	221 Cal. App. 3d 692	94
1997	People v. Garcia	19 Cal. App. 4th 97	88
1996	People v. White Eagle	48 Cal. App. 4th 1511	73
1984	In Re Cheryl E.	161 Cal. App. 3d 587	73
1985	People v. Hunt	174 Cal. App. 3d 95	72
1996	Lucas v. County of Los Angeles	47 Cal. App. 4th 277	65
1993	Cassinos v. Union Oil Co.	14 Cal. App. 4th 1770	64
1986	People v. Gray	187 Cal. App. 3d 213	59
1995	In Re Pedro N.	35 Cal. App. 4th 183	58
1996	Jordan v. City of Santa Barbara	46 Cal. App. 4th 1245	57
1993	Xebec Development Partners, Ltd. v. National Union Fire Insurance	12 Cal. App. 4th 501	57
1995	People v. Ingram	40 Cal. App. 4th 1397	56
1988	Hernandez v. Mendoza	199 Cal. App. 3d 721	56

Showing the 15 most-cited of 592 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 Steven J. Stone on?: Steven J. Stone 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

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

22 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).