# Patricia Guerrero **Patricia Guerrero** is the Chief Justice of California, the first Latina to hold the office. She appears in this vault as the author of the California Supreme Court's unanimous **24 September 2026** ruling that Riverside County Sheriff [[Chad Bianco]] had unlawfully seized more than 650,000 voted ballots from the county Registrar of Voters, ordering them returned. The operative sentence — that the sheriff's arguments "fail to persuade us that we should interpret [California election law] in a manner inconsistent with its plain text, which mandates that voted ballots remain in the custody of elections officials" — is the clearest judicial statement available on where custody of voted ballots legally sits. The same ruling held that California's Attorney General has direct supervisory authority over sheriffs. Expand with: her appointment and confirmation history, the composition of the court she leads, and her other election-law and separation-of-powers opinions. This is a stub — created in the 2026-10-03 ASCII map build. Expand as noted above. ## See Also - [[Election Ballot Chain of Custody Flow]] · [[Chad Bianco]] · [[Rob Bonta]] - [[Proposition 50 (California)]]