The sanctions record · Supreme Court of California, 2026

Cervantes v. Bianco

Clarissa Cervantes et al. v. Chad Bianco, as Sheriff, etc., et al., S295866 · Opinion of the Court by Chief Justice Guerrero, in which Justices Corrigan, Liu, Kruger, Groban, Evans and Burns (assigned) concurred · filed 24 September 2026

Page verified 1 October 2026. Opinion read in full, forty-five pages; every quotation is from it. Source: the opinion as published on the California courts’ own site.

A referral from the state’s highest court, not a fine. In the case over the Riverside County Sheriff’s seizure of about 650,000 ballots from the November 2025 Proposition 50 election, the Sheriff’s preliminary briefing challenged standing on “misquoted passages from, and an incorrect recitation of our holding in” the court’s own decision in Common Cause v. Board of Supervisors. The court disapproved “the improper use of artificial intelligence tools, which apparently contributed to the significant error”, reminded counsel of the duties of competence and candor, and referred the matter to the State Bar of California. There was no monetary sanction. The opinion does not name the firm responsible.

The record

CourtSupreme Court of California, an original proceeding on a petition for writ of mandate
OpinionChief Justice Guerrero for a unanimous court; Justice Liu also filed a concurring opinion
Filed24 September 2026
The errorIn the Sheriff’s preliminary briefing on standing: misquoted passages from, and an incorrect recitation of the holding in, Common Cause v. Board of Supervisors (1989) 49 Cal.3d 432, a decision of the same court
Tool“Artificial intelligence tools”, not named, which the court said “apparently contributed” to the error
Response“The law firm responsible for the error apologized and withdrew Bianco’s standing argument.” The opinion does not say which of the Sheriff’s firms was responsible, and this page does not attribute it
AmountNone
Duties citedRules of Professional Conduct, rules 1.1 (competence) and 3.3 (candor toward the tribunal)
DisciplineReferred to the State Bar of California “to determine whether discipline is warranted”, citing canon 3D(2) of the California Code of Judicial Ethics

What the court found

The merits were about ballots, not AI. The court held the seizure unlawful under Elections Code section 15551 and issued a peremptory writ of mandate directing the Sheriff to return the voted ballots to the Registrar of Voters. By the time of decision the Sheriff no longer contested the petitioners’ standing, and the court explained why in footnote 7:

“In his preliminary briefing, Bianco challenged petitioners’ standing based on misquoted passages from, and an incorrect recitation of our holding in, Common Cause v. Board of Supervisors (1989) 49 Cal.3d 432 (Common Cause). The law firm responsible for the error apologized and withdrew Bianco’s standing argument. We disapprove of the improper use of artificial intelligence tools, which apparently contributed to the significant error that occurred here and remind counsel of attorneys’ professional duties of competence and candor to the court. (See Rules Prof. Conduct, rules 1.1, 3.3.) We also refer the matter to the State Bar of California to determine whether discipline is warranted. (See canon 3D(2) of the California Code of Judicial Ethics.)”

Why it matters

Three features travel. First, the forum. This is the highest court of the state, in a unanimous published opinion, treating an AI-assisted misstatement in a brief as a matter for the bar. The apology and the withdrawal of the argument did not end it.

Second, the error. Nothing was invented. A real precedent of the same court was misquoted and its holding misstated. The duty to check covers what a cited case says, not only whether it exists.

Third, the timing. Six days later, on 30 September 2026, the Governor signed SB 574, which puts a personal duty to verify every citation into California’s sanctions statute.

The lesson for the next filing

The court did not need to know which tool was used, or by whom. It needed the quoted words to match the precedent before the brief was filed, and nothing in the record showed that anyone had checked them against it.

Regulayer™ creates checkable evidence of who approved exact words and when: which AI was used, what a named person reviewed, and the document it was sealed to, made at the time and verifiable free by the court without trusting the person who made it. It does not do the checking. It shows that the checking happened, and who stood behind it.

Verify a sealed record free →

Sources

Cervantes v. Bianco (Sept. 24, 2026, S295866), opinion of the Court and concurring opinion, forty-five pages, read in full for this page at the California courts’ own site; footnote 7 is on page 8

The full sanctions record
California SB 574, signed 30 September 2026: personal verification of every citation, in the sanctions statute
Lacey v. State Farm, a California federal court on the same failure
Verification is becoming a duty. Evidence of verification is the missing layer.

Verified 1 October 2026 against the opinion, read in full. Whether discipline follows is for the State Bar. Information, not legal advice.

Information, not legal advice. Every entry is verified against the court’s own document or contemporaneous reporting; where a source is reporting rather than the document, we say so.