While on the council, Mueller was selected to serve as Vice-Mayor and chair of the city's budget committee. She also led a successful effort with then-Mayor Anne Rudin to introduce campaign finance reform to the city's politics.[5][6][7]
Legal career
Mueller left her position on the Sacramento City Council in 1992 to attend Stanford Law School.[4] After graduation, she worked for five years at the Sacramento office of Orrick, Herrington and Sutcliffe, and later opened her own private practice.[2]
On February 25, 2015, Mueller upheld California's Unsafe Handgun Act (also known as the handgun roster) as constitutional.[13] The Ninth Circuit affirmed the opinion on August 3, 2018.[14]
On April 17, 2015, Mueller held that criminal defendants charged with marijuana-related crimes had standing to bring a constitutional challenge to marijuana's Schedule I status, but ultimately rejected Defendants' constitutional arguments.[15]
On December 21, 2015, Mueller rejected a First Amendment challenge, filed by crisis pregnancy centers, to California's law requiring them to provide notice to clients regarding the availability of abortions and contraception.[16] The Ninth Circuit affirmed the decision,[17] but the Supreme Court reversed it.[18]
On December 29, 2022, Mueller upheld as constitutional California's ban on openly carrying handguns.[19] The Ninth Circuit reversed the decision on June 29, 2023 saying Mueller "applied the incorrect legal standard" to the case, remanding back to District Court.[20]
Mueller presides over the decades-long case Coleman v. Newsom, a class action challenging the conditions in California's prisons that resulted in a mandated reduction in the prison population and new requirements for medical care, mental health care, and suicide prevention in prisons. She also sits on the three-judge panel that adjudicates certain issues in Coleman and the related case, Brown v. Plata.[21]
Mueller also issued some of the earliest decisions interpreting the First Step Act in the context of requests for compassionate release due to the risk of COVID-19 filed by incarcerated individuals with comorbities.[22]
^"Ferris becomes Sacramento Vice Mayor". Sacramento Bee. The McClatchy Company. January 3, 1990. p. B3. Archived from the original(fee required) on July 12, 2008. Retrieved 2008-07-11. Councilwoman Kim Mueller, who held the title last year, nominated Ferris to take her place in 1990
^"Mueller Leads Budget Panel". Sacramento Bee. The McClatchy Company. January 5, 1990. p. B8. Archived from the original(fee required) on July 12, 2008. Retrieved 2008-07-11.
.jpg)
