P v. Bell, et al.

There is something to be said for a crisp opinion on a pure question of law.  One of the things that can be said for such opinions is that they leave little room through which judicial prejudice may emerge.  The danger of less principled opinions is that they tend to allow the reader to "see the sausage being made".  This opinion provides a clear view into the abattoir.
The government had built a case that the defendants were planning a robbery and while the defendants were on their way to the target, pulled them over and extracted them from the car.  There were armored personnel carriers and other SWAT equipment involved in the traffic stop.  The trial judge ruled the martial details of the stop (that there were SWAT teams, advanced weaponry, and military-style vehicles) inadmissible and admonished the prosecutor not to elicit such details.

The prosecutor had to substitute a witness last-minute and failed to tell the witness not to mention the armory present during the stop.  The prosecutor asked the witness if he made contact with the defendant's vehicle during the stop and the witness answered, "No.  I was positioned in the turret of the armored personnel carrier."  Oops. The defense moved for, and was granted, a mistrial.  At retrial, the defendants pled once in jeopardy.  The trial judge denied the defendants a jury trial on the defense of once in jeopardy and denied their motion to dismiss the indictment.  The defendants were then convicted and appealed the trial court's denial of a jury trial on the issue of once in jeopardy. 

The legal issue here was narrow and quite clear.  California statute explicitly provides the defendants a right to a jury trial on whether they were once in jeopardy, regardless of the theory upon which they rely (here the theory that the prosecutor goaded them into requesting a mistrial by failing to admonish his witness or asking a question likely to elicit inadmissible testimony).  The panel gets the answer right and conditionally reverses the convictions.  It could have (and IMEO should have) been a crisp, unassailable opinion. 
But the panel clearly does not agree with the outcome.  Which is fine.  What makes Justice Poochigan look less than judicial is his opinion's girning pleas to the legislature to consider changing the law.  I know nothing of Justice Poochigan's background but his explicitly stated preferences for judicial fact-finding and efficiency at the expense of a defendant's statutory right to take his case to a a jury are political and not judicial.  Most if not all judges have prejudices one way or another.  However, the saavy ones omit this offal from their opinions.