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 1974 / Served to 1994

William L. Todd Jr.

Associate Justice, California Court of Appeal

William L. Todd Jr. was an Associate Justice of the California Court of Appeal, who joined the court in 1974. Opinions & record ↓ Sources ↓

Born: 1929 · age 97
Tenure: 1974–1994 · 20 yrs

Judicial service

Year	Court	Appointed by	Vote
1974	California Court of Appeal	–	–
1986	California Court of Appeal	–	–

Judicial Record

In our data, Todd authored 146 published opinions for the court (1981–1994), plus 2 dissents and 3 concurrences. Most cited: In Re Basilio T. (151 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. 151 of these were attributed to Todd 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
1992	In Re Basilio T.†	4 Cal. App. 4th 155	151
1994	Bianco v. California Highway Patrol†	24 Cal. App. 4th 1113	107
1994	People v. Forster†	29 Cal. App. 4th 1746	73
1989	People v. Sanchez†	208 Cal. App. 3d 721	69
1989	People v. Stark†	213 Cal. App. 3d 107	59
1989	People v. Rushing†	209 Cal. App. 3d 618	54
1987	Green v. City of Oceanside· Dissent†	194 Cal. App. 3d 212	51
1993	People v. Rehmeyer†	19 Cal. App. 4th 1758	43
1994	Pender v. Radin†	23 Cal. App. 4th 1807	42
1993	People v. Gear†	19 Cal. App. 4th 86	39
1994	Titan/Value Equities Grp., Inc. v. Superior Court of San Diego Cty.†	29 Cal. App. 4th 482	36
1990	Troche v. Daley†	217 Cal. App. 3d 403	36
1994	People v. Bernal†	22 Cal. App. 4th 1455	34
1987	People v. Scroggins†	191 Cal. App. 3d 502	34
1991	Ahern v. Dillenback†	1 Cal. App. 4th 36	33

Showing the 15 most-cited of 151 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 William L. Todd Jr. on?: William L. Todd Jr. 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

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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).