Supreme Court ruling bolsters new justice's earlier dissents

Two dissents Justice Corey G. Lee wrote while temporarily serving on the 2nd District Court of Appeal gained support from a subsequent California Supreme Court ruling on murder resentencing petitions.

Now Lee, a former federal prosecutor and San Bernardino County Superior Court judge, faces voters Nov. 3 after less than a year on the 4th District Court of Appeal, Division 2. She is seeking the remaining four years of her predecessor's term.

Her own body of work on the 4th District is still taking shape, but her earlier dissents reveal her approach.

In two unpublished 2024 decisions, Lee disagreed with appellate majorities that ordered further proceedings on murder resentencing petitions. She argued that courts could consider undisputed evidence showing defendants had acted alone, rather than rely solely on allegations in their petitions.

The state Supreme Court later addressed the same issue in People v. Patton (2025), ruling that trial courts may rely on unchallenged preliminary hearing testimony to reject petitions containing only conclusory allegations. In July 2025, the justices sent both cases in which Lee had dissented back to the 2nd District for reconsideration.

In People v. Scarano (2024), the defendant had pleaded no contest to voluntary manslaughter in the 2009 stabbing death of his adoptive mother. Justice Michelle C. Kim, writing for the majority, reversed the summary denial of his petition, holding that relying on the preliminary hearing transcript at the prima facie stage was impermissible factfinding.

Lee disagreed. The uncontroverted record showed the defendant "was charged as the actual killer who acted alone," she wrote, contrary to the boxes he checked on a form petition.

People v. Carbajal (2024) drew a nearly identical dissent. That defendant had pleaded guilty to second-degree murder in a 2000 shooting, after admitting to a sheriff's deputy that he shot the victim following a fistfight.

"They are both about the same issue so similarly approached," Lee said in an email. "I like to think the approach was practical and based on application of evidence to law."

Since joining the 4th District, Lee has continued to address sentencing questions, including a dispute among appellate courts over the interpretation of a resentencing statute.

In People v. Lua (2026), she wrote for a unanimous panel that a San Bernardino County judge could reimpose a nine-year upper term on a carjacker originally sentenced in 2008 without additional jury findings or a stipulation on aggravating factors.

The case involved Penal Code Section 1172.75, which invalidated most one-year prison-prior enhancements and provided for resentencing. Under current sentencing law, judges generally cannot impose an upper-term sentence unless aggravating facts have been stipulated to by the defendant or established beyond a reasonable doubt.

Lee held that the opening clause of subdivision (d)(4), "Unless the court originally imposed the upper term," creates an exception. Because the defendant had received the upper term at his original sentencing, the judge could reimpose it without the additional findings, even when considering different or additional aggravating factors.

The ruling sided with the majority of appellate courts that had addressed the issue.

Lee spent 10 years on the Superior Court after Gov. Jerry Brown appointed her in 2015. Before the bench, she prosecuted gang racketeering, drug conspiracy and fraud cases as an assistant U.S. attorney.

Earlier, she worked in Washington, D.C., including at the Office of Management and Budget and in Sen. Edward M. Kennedy's office, and volunteered with groups such as the Families of Murder Victims program in the Philadelphia district attorney's homicide unit.

Born in South Korea, Lee immigrated to the U.S. at 9. She became a citizen during her senior year at the University of Pennsylvania. She also holds a master's degree in social administration from Columbia and a law degree from Loyola.