Tari L. CodyIncumbent

Candidate for Court of Appeal Justice, California Court of Appeal, Second Appellate District, Division 6, Seat 1

Tari L. Cody is the Presiding Justice of the California Court of Appeal, Second District, Division 6. That court covers Ventura, Santa Barbara, and San Luis Obispo counties. She earned her bachelor's degree from UC Irvine in 1981, and she earned her J.D. from Loyola Law School in 1985. She then went into practice in Ventura County, where she worked as a lawyer for 15 years. First, she was an associate and then a partner at a firm called Nordman, Cormany, Hair & Compton, from 1985 to 1994. After that, she moved to a firm called Lemieux & O'Neill, where she worked from 1994 to 2000. There, her focus was municipal law. She stood for government agencies and water districts in matters over contracts, jobs, and other business. Gov. Gray Davis put her on the Ventura County Superior Court in December 2000, and she sat there as a trial judge for more than two decades. She won re-election to that bench more than once, and one of those wins came in 2014. Gov. Gavin Newsom then put her name up for the Court of Appeal on January 31, 2023, and the Commission on Judicial Appointments confirmed her, with no votes against, as an Associate Justice of Division 6 that spring. On June 2, 2026, Gov. Newsom named her to be the new Presiding Justice of Division 6. That seat had come open when longtime Presiding Justice Arthur Gilbert chose to retire. She took her oath of office on August 6, 2026, once her Commission hearing was done. On November 3, 2026, voters in the district will mark yes or no on whether she should stay on as Presiding Justice. This kind of vote is called a retention election, and it is nonpartisan. She has no one running against her.

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