Opinion ID: 1127477
Heading Depth: 4
Heading Rank: 1

Heading: Denial of Defendant's Motion to Join

Text: (2) Defendant contends the trial court abused its discretion and committed reversible error in denying defendant's motion to join in a motion made at the trial court level in People v. Ramos (S005499, app. pending) and People v. Cinco (S006096, app. abated Mar. 20, 1989), both capital cases, one of which is currently pending before this court, and in prejudging the motion. [3] In particular, he claims that the trial court's ruling deprived defendant of the opportunity to be heard, to fully develop his record in the trial court, and precluded effective appellate review, in violation of his rights under the Sixth, Eighth, and Fourteenth Amendments. These claims are meritless. On May 23, 1986, defendant moved to quash the jury venire on the ground that Hispanic persons are underrepresented in the composition of Orange County jury panels in relationship to their numbers in the community-at-large and, consequently, Defendant cannot receive a fair trial by a jury of his peers. Rather than litigate this motion on his own, defendant requested that he be allowed to join in a similar motion pending in the Ramos/Cinco cases. Defendant's trial was scheduled to begin on September 15. Defense counsel asserted in a declaration filed in support of the motion that the Ramos/Cinco hearing was scheduled for August 1. The motion to join was heard on June 20, 1986. The trial court began the hearing by informing counsel that the Ramos/Cinco motion will not even be ready any earlier than September 22, or after the date that your case was set to start. It noted that under section 1050, criminal cases should go to trial without delay and unless there is good cause for continuance. The court stated that it had had a number of motions in other death cases to join in the Ramos/Cinco motion, but that so far it had resisted allowing such joinder for a number of reasons. First, the Ramos/Cinco motion was large enough by itself ... almost unwieldy because of the number of counsel involved. Second, there is simply no legal possibility that any ruling which might result from [the Ramos/Cinco motion] would only be prospective in operation. Third, the court did not want to slow down the Ramos/Cinco cases in violation of section 1050 by adding additional defendants. Finally, the court stated that there is no legal authority for one criminal defendant to join another criminal defendant's case. [F]or all of those reasons, the court believed each defendant ought to proceed on his own, and if he has a meritorious motion the court should, no question about it, give it full consideration. Following argument by counsel, the court denied the motion without prejudice. In so ruling, the court stated, If your case is ... continued for some other reason ..., for good cause, then you know, I would reconsider it, if you want to make a motion at a later time. But at the present time.... I don't want this joinder to be used as an excuse to continue the criminal trial unless it is not otherwise ready for other reasons. Defendant neither raised the issue on his own, nor did he renew his motion to join at a later date. Jury selection actually commenced nearly three years later in February 1989. Defendant asserts that he was denied his constitutional right to trial before a jury drawn from a fair cross-section of the community because Orange County's method of drawing jurors from the community systematically resulted in underrepresentation of [H]ispanics. As noted above, defendant pursued this objection solely in the form of a motion to join a similar motion pending in the Ramos/Cinco cases. It was denied without prejudice, and he never renewed it or filed his own motion to quash although he had ample opportunity to do so. Hence he has waived the issue for appeal. We further conclude that the trial court's denial of defendant's motion to join in the motion in the unrelated Ramos/Cinco cases was a proper exercise of the trial court's discretion. The trial court reasonably found that because the Ramos/Cinco motion would not be heard until after defendant's trial was scheduled to commence, granting the motion to join would in effect be granting a continuance. Furthermore, because the court found that there was no reason for granting the motion to join, it implicitly found there was no good cause for continuing the trial as required by section 1050. Denial of what is essentially a motion for a continuance, when no good cause is demonstrated, is not an abuse of discretion. (§ 1050; cf. People v. Zapien (1993) 4 Cal.4th 929, 972 [17 Cal. Rptr.2d 122, 846 P.2d 704].) Moreover, defendant did not renew his motion to join, or file his own motion to quash the venire, despite the fact that jury selection did not actually commence until February 1989. Finally, defendant does not assert how the trial court abused its discretion, or how he was prejudiced by the denial of his motion for joinder. Contrary to defendant's assertion, the trial court's reasoning does not conflict[] with established principles of judicial efficiency. Nor do we agree with defendant that [b]ecause judicial economy is clearly not served by requiring duplicative litigation of an identical issue, the judge's ruling strongly suggests that he knew he would rule adversely in the Ramos and Cinco cases, which were pending before him. Bias of the trial court, in the form of prejudging a key legal issue, violates the constitutional right to a fair trial. Defendant never challenged the trial judge on the ground that he was biased; hence he has waived any such claim. Nor was the trial court's refusal to allow defendant to join in a motion in an unrelated case even colorable evidence that the trial judge was guilty of bias or prejudging. Defendant also argues that given the substantial investment of time, money, investigation and expertise, required to mount a challenge to a county's method of drawing jurors from the community, many affected defendants will not proceed on their own, thus interfering with effective representation of the capital case defendants. Defendant did not make this argument below; indeed, even on appeal he does not assert that these factors affected his decision to not make an individual motion challenging the Orange County grand venire. The assertion is therefore entirely speculative and untethered to any issue in this case. [4] Defendant further asserts that the trial court erroneously considered whether defendant was Hispanic or Spanish-speaking in ruling on his motion to join. In fact, while the trial court made such an inquiry, it stated that defendant did not have to be a member of the same racial group that he is claiming is in dispute with the jury commissioner, and that it asked the question because I think it should be in the record in case there is some appellate review and they need to determine how important it really is on a personal basis for the defendant to make the motion. Defendant appears to argue that the trial court erred by observing that six years had elapsed since the crime was committed. No error is apparent. After delineating its reasons recited above for denying the motion for joinder without prejudice, the trial court noted that the crime allegedly occurred in 1980 and it is already six years old. Defense counsel stated, As the court knows it was tried and has been up and back. It's just been back since March. The trial court responded, I am not suggesting its [ sic ] anybody's fault. But basically that has been a very long time. And we do like to see a speedy resolution of these criminal cases and six years does not qualify as a speedy resolution. Defense counsel stated, I would agree. Contrary to defendant's assertion, this colloquy does not indicate the trial court was blaming defendant for delays associated with the appointment of counsel or the prosecution and decision of meritorious appeals; indeed, the trial court expressly stated just the opposite.