WASHINGTON — The Supreme Court justices sounded ready on Tuesday to uphold state laws that forbid transgender athletes from competing on school sports teams for girls.
Idaho, West Virginia and 25 other Republican-led states say a student’s biological sex at birth should determine who can play on the girls’ or boys’ teams.
They say it is unfair to girls to permit biological males to compete against them in sports like track and field or swimming. “Biological males are, on average, bigger, stronger and faster than biological females,” West Virginia’s state lawyers said.
While the court’s conservative majority court is likely to rule for these states, the justices said they prefer a narrow decision limited to these laws.
If so, such a ruling for the red states will not directly change the law in California and the more than a dozen other Democratic-led states that forbid discrimination based on gender identity. Those laws protect rights of transgender girls to compete on a girls’ team.
A similar dispute came before the court last year.
Then, the conservative justices ruled Tennessee and other red states may prohibit gender-affirming drugs and medical treatments for teenagers who suffer from gender dysphoria.
The 6-3 majority said this was not unconstitutional discrimination based on the teenagers’ transgender status. But that ruling did not strike down the conflicting law in California.
In recent months, the Trump administration joined the transgender sports cases on the side of West Virginia and Idaho.
But its lawyers argued only that the Constitution permits states to exclude transgender girls from girls’ teams. It does not require that they do so, their lawyers said.
Even a West Virginia lawyer agreed. “There is enough room for California to make a different interpretation,” state solicitor Michael R. Williams told the court.
Deputy Solicitor Gen. Hashim Mooppan said these Democratic states “are violating Title IX,” the education law that allows separate sports teams for girls and boys. But he said the court should not rule on that question now.
Last year, in response to the court’s ruling on gender-affirming care, President Trump cut off federal funds to hospitals and medical facilities that provided such care.
A ruling upholding restrictions on transgender athletes could spur the Trump administration to threaten Democratic states with a loss of federal education funds.
Becky Pepper-Jackson, now 15, has carried on a lonely legal fight to compete on her school’s track team in Bridgeport, W.Va.
Designated male at birth, she says she is the only transgender girl competing in her state and has been the target of complaints and protests.
In middle school, Becky participated in cross-country as a sixth-grader and described herself as slow. She “routinely placed near the back of the pack,” her attorneys told the court.
But upon reaching high school, she has been winning.
In 2024, she “placed in the top three in every track event in which B.P.J. competed, winning most,” the state’s attorneys said. Last spring “focusing on strength events, B.P.J. bumped female competitors out of the state tournament, then placed third in the state in discus and eighth in shot put while competing against much older female athletes,” they told the court.
Her attorney, Joshua Block of the American Civil Liberties Union, said she has been winning in the shot put and discus “through hard work and practice.”
He said she “received puberty-delaying medication and gender-affirming estrogen that allowed her to undergo a hormonal puberty typical of a girl.”
He urged the court to rule for Becky because she does not have a physical advantage due to her biology.
But the justices did not sound inclined to rule on the issue of puberty blockers.
A mental health diversion granted to a former Kern County politician is coming under fire from numerous California lawmakers and child welfare advocates, who say a repeatedly amended state law is allowing an accused child abuser to avoid prosecution and possible jail time.
Zack Scrivner, a former Kern County supervisor, was charged with felony child abuse in February after he was accused of inappropriately touching one of his children in 2024. But because of a Dec. 19 ruling by a judge, he will avoid a trial and instead be funneled into a mental health diversion program — an initiative aimed at helping defendants with mental health disorders get treatment instead of imprisonment for certain crimes.
While supporters say mental health diversions help certain defendants get needed mental health treatment, lawmakers in both parties have blasted the Scrivner decision and the legislative changes that led to it. Assemblymember Dr. Jasmeet Bains (D-Delano) issued a scathing statement, describing the ruling as an “Epstein loophole,” a reference to convicted child sex offender Jeffrey Epstein.
“I specialize in family and addiction medicine, so I know the value of mental health diversion … It was designed to help people get treatment and rehabilitation in appropriate cases, not to provide an escape hatch to sexually assault children,” she said. “This Epstein loophole needs to be closed.”
At the end of their 2018 legislative session, California lawmakers approved a number of legal reforms, many aimed at keeping homeless people out of jail. One of these altered what defendants could qualify for mental health diversions. The change specifically excluded people accused of crimes such as murder, rape and child sex crime but did not exclude those accused of child abuse. Then, in 2022, another amendment to the law directed courts to allow a diversion if a diagnosed mental health disorder played a significant role in the alleged crime unless there is “clear and convincing” evidence it wasn’t a motivating factor.
Since then, controversies have arisen over several judicial decisions. In 2024, a judge granted a mental health diversion to a Pasadena doctor accused of trying to kill his family by driving the family Tesla off a cliff with his wife and two children inside. In Sacramento County, Sheriff Jim Cooper and other officials have criticized a mental health diversion granted to a father arrested in connection with the death of 1-year-old “Baby A,” who had suffered from severe injuries while in her father’s custody.
Emergency personnel respond to a vehicle over the side of Highway 1 on Jan. 1, 2023, in San Mateo County. A Pasadena doctor, Dharmesh Patel, was charged that year with three counts of attempted murder in crashing the car over a cliff, injuring his two young children and his wife. A judge granted him a mental health diversion in 2024, allowing him to live with his parents while receiving treatment.
(Sgt. Brian Moore / Associated Press)
“People are becoming very skeptical of mental health treatment because it’s being used in ways nobody ever intended,” said Matthew Greco, deputy district attorney of San Diego County and author of the California Criminal Mental Health Handbook. The 2022 law change limited the discretion of judges — one reason the California District Attorneys Assn. opposed it, he said. Greco has since heard from judges across the state that they feel their hands are tied. In San Diego County, the number of mental health diversions granted has steadily risen since 2019.
The 2018 law establishing the program had good intentions, he said, but lacked proper legislative vetting.
“We know the central premise behind mental health diversion is that if we obtain mental health treatment for those that are mentally ill that are committing crimes, the public will be safer,” he said. “But we need to have both public safety and treatment.”
In Kern County, Scrivner has numerous political connections in the Republican Party and beyond. He served for 13 years as a county supervisor before resigning in August 2024. He also served on the Bakersfield City Council and had spent four years working for former House Speaker Kevin McCarthy.
Kern County Dist. Atty. Cynthia Zimmer is also the aunt of Scrivner, and before recusing herself from the case, she played a key role in alerting law enforcement to his actions.
At a news conference in April 2024, Kern County Sheriff Donny Youngblood said he received a call from Zimmer that Scrivner was armed and experiencing “some type of psychotic episode” at his Tehachapi home. Deputies responded and found that Scrivner had fought with his children, with one of them stabbing him in his torso amid allegations that he had sexually assaulted another of his children, Youngblood said. While Scrivner’s four minor children were at the house at the time, his wife, who had previously filed for divorce, was not.
According to Youngblood, detectives obtained a search warrant and ended up seizing 30 firearms, psychedelic mushrooms, electronic devices and possible evidence of sexual assault in the house.
Things got complicated at that point, given that Kern County’s district attorney was obligated to recuse herself and Atty. Gen. Rob Bonta’s office took over the case.
In February 2025, Bonta’s office charged Scrivner with two felony counts of possessing assault weapons and three felony counts of child abuse. The charges, however, did not include sexual assault, even though the state’s complaint said Scrivner had “consumed mind and/or mood altering drugs and substances, got into bed” with a child and inappropriately touched the child.
On Dec. 19, a Kern County Superior Court judge approved a motion filed by Scrivner’s attorney, H.A. Sala, to allow the former county supervisor to enter a mental health diversion program. Sala, who has not returned multiple requests for comment, presented the court with a medical diagnosis conducted by doctors that Scrivner had been suffering from mental health disorders, including alcohol-use disorder, depression and anxiety, according to a report in the Bakersfield Californian. Sala argued that a treatment program would be the best option for Scrivner, in keeping with the intent of the Legislature.
ln her ruling, Superior Court Judge Stephanie R. Childers sided with Sala, noting the state had “offered no alternative” to the medical diagnosis of Scrivner that had been submitted to the court, according to the Bakersfield Californian.
In response, the state attorney general’s office released a statement saying that it opposed the judge’s decision and “we are reviewing our options.” It added that the office filed charges that it believes the state “can prove beyond a reasonable doubt at trial.” So far, the Kern County Superior Court has declined to release Scrivner’s attorney’s motion, stating it is confidential.
During Scrivner’s Dec. 19 court appearance, according to the Californian, Deputy Atty. Gen. Joe Penney stated that Scrivner “got into bed with the minor victim — while he had alcohol, Ambien, benzos (benzodiazepines) and cocaine metabolites in his system — and fondled her breast area and genital area for a period about 10 minutes while she was frozen in fear.”
State Sen. Shannon Grove (R-Bakersfield) is one of the lawmakers calling for reform of the program in light of Scrivner’s case. She questioned when the state justice system would prioritize vulnerable victims over “the monsters who harm them.”
“A program intended to promote treatment must never be allowed to erode accountability for the most serious and violent crimes against children,” she said in a statement online.
Several lawmakers have introduced bills to modify the mental health diversion law. In 2024, Assemblymember Maggy Krell (D-Sacramento) was unsuccessful in her attempt to exclude defendants from qualifying from the program if they had been charged with child abuse and endangerment, domestic violence that causes great bodily harm or human trafficking.
Krell, a former deputy attorney general, said cases that have stirred outrage seem to be appearing in just about every county, including in her district.
“We should ensure that people who are mentally ill are receiving treatment,” she said, but there has to be accountability when people break the law as well. Krell said she intends to try to submit the bill again. “We need to give courts discretion to make these determinations. We also need to make sure we’re keeping victims safe. There’s just too many examples where this has failed.”
Although some elected officials are seeking reforms to the program, Kern County organizer Flor Olvera said she thinks the focus should include whether Scrivner received preferential treatment.
“You can have a mental health diversion granted, but what is the justice system doing to hold people accountable?” she said. “When it’s people in these powerful positions, it does seem like the system moves differently for them.”
In a Dec. 20 statement, Bains said she sent a letter asking U.S. Assistant Atty. Gen. Harmeet Dhillon and U.S. Atty. Eric Grant to investigate whether Scrivner violated federal civil rights statutes by leveraging his former status as an elected official.
“This is not justice, and this is not over,” she said.
In a Dec. 24 interview with radio host Ralph Bailey, Sheriff Youngblood said that deputies arrived at Scrivner’s home that day in 2024 and confirmed that the county supervisor was unarmed. Scrivner then got on the phone and asked the sheriff to send the deputies away.
“My response was, ‘no, they’re going to do what they have to do,’” he said. A deputy said there was more to investigate, and Youngblood supported it. Zimmer, the Kern County district attorney, did not ask for a favor, Youngblood said.
Yet questions remain as to why deputies did not arrest Scrivner immediately. Speaking to local media, Youngblood said he had no one who could arraign the supervisor within a limited time frame, but Kern County prosecutors dispute that. Late Wednesday, the sheriff’s office directed inquiries to the state attorney general’s office, after declining to respond to questions over the last week.
Joseph A. Kinzel, the county’s assistant district attorney, said in an email that because Scrivner was not arrested that night, there was no request from law enforcement that charges be filed. Kinzel said that the office immediately determined it would be inappropriate to get involved with the case, and that the office “did everything it should have to ensure that a conflict-free prosecution would occur.”
In the radio interview, Youngblood said that he believed the state attorney general’s office “didn’t do their job correctly” by letting Scrivner avoid a sex crime charge.
“I can only speak for the sheriff’s office, and I can tell you that the deputies that investigated that did absolutely the right thing,” he said. “I believe that the children were all on board and would have done exactly what the court asked them to do, and that is, tell the truth. So from my standpoint, this stinks.”
State regulators ordered Southern California Edison to identify fire risks on its unused transmission lines like the century-old equipment suspected of igniting the devastating Eaton wildfire.
Edison also must tell regulators how its 355 miles of out-of-service transmission lines located in areas of high fire risk will be used in the future, according to a document issued by the Office of Energy Infrastructure Safety on Dec. 23.
State regulations require utilities to remove abandoned lines so they don’t become a public hazard. Edison executives said they did not remove the Eaton Canyon line because they believed it would be used in the future. It last carried power in 1971.
The Office of Energy Infrastructure Safety said Edison must determine which unused transmission lines are most at risk of igniting fires and create a plan to decrease that risk. In some cases that might mean removing the equipment entirely.
While the OEIS report focuses on Edison, the agency said it also will require the state’s other electric companies to take similar actions with their idle transmission lines.
Scott Johnson, an Edison spokesman, said Monday that the company already had been reviewing idle lines and planned to respond to the regulators’ requests. He said Edison often keeps idle lines in place “to support long-term system needs, such as future electrification, backup capacity or regional growth.”
“If idle lines are identified to have no future use, they are removed,” he said.
Johnson said that since 2018, Edison has removed idle lines that no longer had a purpose seven times and provided a list of those projects.
The investigation into the cause of the Eaton wildfire by state and local fire officials has not yet been released. Edison has said the leading theory is that the dormant transmission line in Eaton Canyon briefly reenergized on the night of Jan. 7, sparking the fire.
Unused lines can become energized from electrified lines running parallel to them through a process called induction.
The Eaton wildfire killed at least 19 people and destroyed more than 9,000 homes and structures in Altadena.
After the fires, Edison said it had added more grounding equipment to its old transmission lines no longer in service. The added devices give any unexpected electricity on the line more places to disperse into the ground, making them less likely to spark a fire.
The OEIS issued its latest directives after Edison executives informed the agency they had no plans to remove any out-of-service lines between now and 2028, the report said.
State regulators and the utilities have long known that old transmission lines can ignite wildfires.
The Times reported how Edison and other utilities defeated a state regulatory plan, introduced in 2001, which would’ve forced the companies to remove abandoned lines unless they could prove they would use them again.
In its report the OEIS noted it would require Edison and other electric companies to provide details of how often each idle line was inspected and how long it took to fix problems found in those inspections.
Edison has said it inspected the unused line in Eaton Canyon annually before the fire — just as often as it inspects live lines. The company declined to provide The Times with documentation of those inspections.
In the OEIS report, energy safety regulators said they expect to to approve Edison’s wildfire mitigation plan for the next three years despite the problems they found with the approach.
For example, the report noted that Edison is behind in replacing or reinforcing aging and deteriorating transmission and distribution poles. The regulators said the backlog “includes many work orders on [Edison’s] riskiest circuits.” A circuit is a line or other infrastructure that provides a pathway for electricity.
Officials said the company must work on reducing that backlog. They also criticized Edison executives for not incorporating any lessons they learned from the Jan. 7 wildfires into the company’s fire prevention plans.
Johnson, Edison’s spokesperson, said the company already improved the backlog of pole replacements. He said the company also planned to tell regulators more about the lessons it learned after the Eaton fire.
Under state law, the OEIS must approve a utility’s wildfire mitigation plan before it can issue the company a safety certificate that protects the company from liability if its equipment ignites a catastrophic fire.
The OEIS issued Edison’s last safety certificate less than a month before the Eaton fire — despite the company having had thousands of open work orders, including some on the transmission lines above Altadena, at the time.
Edison is offering to pay for damages suffered by Eaton fire victims and a handful already accepted its offers. The utility says that because it held a safety certificate at the time of the fire it expects to be reimbursed for most or all of the payments by a $21-billion state wildfire fund.
If that fund doesn’t cover the damages, a law passed this year enables Edison to raise its electric rates to make up the difference.
Gov. Gavin Newsom and state lawmakers passed laws to create the state fund and safety certificate program to protect utilities from bankruptcy if their equipment starts costly wildfires. Critics say the laws have gone too far, potentially leaving utilities financially unharmed from fires caused by their negligence.
Edison is fighting hundreds of lawsuits filed by victims of the Eaton fire. The company says it acted prudently in maintaining the safety of its system before the fire.
Pedro Pizarro, chief executive of Edison International, the utility’s parent company, told The Times this month that he believed the company had been “a reasonable operator” of its system before the fire.
“Accidents can happen,” Pizarro said. “Perfection is not something you can achieve, but prudency is a standard to which we’re held.”
