Opinion ID: 1247657
Heading Depth: 3
Heading Rank: 1

Heading: The Jewish Prospective Jurors

Text: The prosecutor undertook to justify each of the peremptory challenges in question. He began, however, by denying that Jews are a cognizable group. In this he was wrong. As defense counsel correctly asserted, Jews are a cognizable group for Wheeler purposes whether viewed from a religious, ethnic, or cultural perspective, or a combination of these. The long history of anti-semitism teaches this lesson all too clearly. In any event, the prosecutor proceeded to offer explanations for his peremptory challenges of all the Jews on the panel. First he declared that I have friends who are Jewish and have them to my home and I am entertained at their homes, and some of the more diligent prosecutors in our office are Jews. This ritual recitation of the hoary excuse, some of my best friends are Jewish, is obviously insufficient as a matter of law. As the United States Supreme Court explained in Batson, the prosecutor does not rebut a prima facie case of group discrimination merely by affirming his good faith or denying that he personally intended to discriminate. (476 U.S. at p. 98 [90 L.Ed.2d at p. 88].) Defense counsel was therefore correct when he objected that the record should not be filled with off-hand social pronouncements by the prosecutor. The prosecutor then offered a number of reasons for each of his peremptory challenges of the four Jewish prospective jurors. They fall generally into two categories: objective reasons based on matters of record, i.e., on answers given by the prospective jurors to questions asked of them on voir dire; and subjective reasons based on matters outside the record, i.e., on the prosecutor's perception or opinion of the demeanor, personality, or appearance of the prospective jurors. For our purposes these are sharply different categories: both the trial court and a reviewing court can test the prosecutor's objective reasons against the record; but his subjective reasons are largely unverifiable by the trial court, and are wholly beyond appellate review. Accordingly, in the analysis that follows I shall assess the prosecutor's objective reasons in light of the record, but shall simply note his subjective reasons for later discussion. (Part IV, post. ) The first Jewish prospective juror discussed by the prosecutor was Joanne Smalley. The prosecutor began by representing to the court that at the time I excused her I didn't know that she was Jewish. The record casts serious doubt on this assertion: during her voir dire examination Mrs. Smalley expressly confirmed that as she had stated in her juror questionnaire, she is a member of the Temple Beth Shalom Sisterhood, and said she attends temple services frequently. The prosecutor, of course, had a copy of her questionnaire and was present when Mrs. Smalley acknowledged these facts in open court. The prosecutor's sole objective reason for excluding Mrs. Smalley was that she allegedly said she was opposed to the death penalty or leaned that way, and She didn't know if she'd follow the law and the evidence or not if she found [the death penalty] to be appropriate.... [4] The record shows the prosecutor's assertion to be part exaggeration, part misstatement. Mrs. Smalley squarely told the prosecutor on voir dire that I'm not definitely for or definitely against the death penalty. When asked to characterize her view she replied that although she had never previously had to make a decision on the question, she would probably lean towards not being for the death penalty. But she repeatedly explained that she would nevertheless follow the law and the evidence on the question. Thus the court asked her, If you felt after hearing all the evidence in this case and the instructions on the law that the death penalty was an appropriate penalty as to one or both defendants, would you have any reluctance voting in favor of it? She replied, I don't believe so. The prosecutor thereafter asked her, Can you picture yourself voting for [the death penalty] if that would be the appropriate penalty for one or both of these defendants? She flatly answered, Yes. By contrast, the prosecutor did accept similar assurances from other jurors who had scruples about imposing the death penalty but said they could do so in an appropriate case. Thus Juror Luis Reguero [5] admitted, I would be reluctant to vote for death, but said he could so vote even though I may not like the decision. Alternate Juror Rose Tucker conceded, I am definitely more weighted towards the life imprisonment, and explained that I most likely tend toward life imprisonment just because I think life is important; but she too said that she could nevertheless vote for death in an appropriate case. Neither was challenged by the prosecutor. The rest of the voir dire examination of Mrs. Smalley was unremarkable and showed her to be a fully qualified juror with no perceivable bias about the case. She was a licensed real estate agent and her husband was a high school teacher. Indeed, other information elicited from her during voir dire was of the type that is ordinarily thought to be favorable to the prosecution. Thus Mrs. Smalley disclosed that a local police officer was a close friend of hers whom she had known for 12 or 13 years and whom she often saw socially; she also had a cousin who was a deputy sheriff. The prosecutor's remaining reasons for excluding Mrs. Smalley were wholly subjective. He claimed she was a very nervous person, that she gave the defendants a very noticeable smile when she was introduced to them and to counsel, and that she looked to me to be a very sympathetic person, and one that would make a poor juror. The prosecutor did not explain any of these remarks, and none, of course, is verifiable on the record. The second Jewish prospective juror discussed by the prosecutor was Charles Kirstel. As an objective reason for challenging him the prosecutor stated that Mr. Kirstel felt the death penalty was not a deterrent. This is a mischaracterization of Mr. Kirstel's view. What he actually said was that purely [as] a general statement he did not believe the death penalty is a deterrent to crime in general, explaining, I mean in the sense that because of it crime has decreased. Surely that was an unexceptionable observation. At numerous points in the voir dire Mr. Kirstel declared himself willing and able to vote for the death penalty if it appeared on the evidence to be the appropriate penalty in the case at bar. [6] The prosecutor next asserted that Mr. Kirstel indicated he would be more inclined to follow his own idea of what he should be doing than he would be to follow the law from the judge. The transcript is otherwise. The court informed Mr. Kirstel, as it informed the other members of the panel, that At the time you take the oath you don't know what the evidence is and you haven't heard the law. But you are nevertheless bound to follow the law and apply it to the case even though you may not agree with it or think it should be something other than it is, and inquired whether he had any hesitancy about that at all? Mr. Kirstel squarely replied, No. He gave the same clear answer to a number of similar questions during the remainder of the voir dire. When the prosecutor pressed the inquiry, Mr. Kirstel explained that he drew a distinction between following the instructions on the law  which he declared himself fully willing and able to do  and making up his own mind on the facts  which of course would have been both his right and duty as a juror. The only other objective reason offered by the prosecutor was that Mr. Kirstel had someone in his family who was a lawyer.... The reference is to a grandson of Mr. Kirstel who was then in practice as a workers' compensation attorney in Sacramento. The prosecutor never explained, however, how this fact could conceivably bias Mr. Kirstel either for or against either party in this case  a murder trial in San Jose. Moreover, the prosecutor voiced no such objection when he accepted Alternate Juror Marie Travis, who had much closer family ties with lawyers: her two brothers were practicing attorneys, one even having served as a criminal defense counsel. The prosecutor's remaining reasons for challenging Mr. Kirstel were subjective. He stressed that Mr. Kirstel was an excessive [in excess of?] seventy years old, that He looked me to be a very tired person, that there was a great deal of rapport between him and one of the defense counsel, that he hesitated in answering some of the court's questions, and that he was somewhat more friendly-appearing to the defendant in the case, more so than the average juror was. Again the prosecutor did not explain any of these remarks, and none is verifiable. The third Jewish prospective juror discussed by the prosecutor was Esther Sobel. As his first objective reason for striking her he said, I had some feelings about her intelligence. I asked her a question about someone who's related to me that worked for Sunnyvale School District for many years and she said yes, she thought she remembered him. The person I was talking about was a female... she got somewhat confused, she didn't seem to be able to grasp things well. The record does not support this criticism of Mrs. Sobel. Contrary to the prosecutor's claim, Mrs. Sobel did not say she thought she remembered the person he asked her about; indeed, she explained that she could not remember particular names of her former co-workers because it had been nine years since she had retired. In addition, the prosecutor's question operated as a trap, because he asked if she knew Joe Gardner, a name that anyone hearing it would take to be male rather than female. [7] Nor does the record support the prosecutor's doubts about Mrs. Sobel's intelligence. Rather, it discloses she was a former school librarian, held not one but two master's degrees, was currently studying both Hebrew and French, was both a violinist and a violist, and played in a classical string quartet. The prosecutor did not question the intelligence of a number of jurors he accepted who had far fewer intellectual accomplishments; for example, several had no education beyond high school. The prosecutor next stated, She had real questions about  she seemed to hesitate when we got into the subject of race.... she said it was just not an issue with her. I had a problem with that. The record shows, however, that Mrs. Sobel did not in fact hesitate when asked about the subject of race; rather, she answered the relevant questions directly and succinctly, demonstrating  as the prosecutor himself described  that race was just not an issue with her. [8] And the prosecutor never said why Mrs. Sobel's absence of racial prejudice was a problem for him, although an unflattering explanation of his motive can be conceived. The prosecutor then referred to two instances in which Mrs. Sobel had allegedly unsatisfactory experiences with the police. First he asserted that She said the previous police department she dealt with did not do a good job. She was very critical of them. The reference is to an instance in which Mrs. Sobel and her husband asked the local sheriff to look into certain activities of their town manager that they believed were illegal; her entire remark on the topic was, Well, he investigated it and we felt that he didn't do a very good job. In these circumstances it is a gross exaggeration to say she was very critical of the sheriff's department. On the contrary, she immediately added that whenever we've needed them they've been very helpful.... Moreover, the prosecutor made no similar objection to Juror Dan Forster, who apparently had far more serious grounds to complain of the inadequacy of a police investigation: Mr. Forster's 15-year-old daughter was run down and killed in a pedestrian walkway only 6 months before this trial, and he stated on voir dire that he felt the police should have investigated more closely whether the driver had been taking drugs or alcohol. They didn't make any attempt to determine [that fact] by blood sample or anything of that type. The driver was not charged with any offense. The prosecutor nevertheless allowed Mr. Forster to serve as a juror. Second, the prosecutor said that Mrs. Sobel had a trial which she apparently testified in against a police officer and she was not happy with it because the officer hadn't told the truth. The reference is to an incident in which Mrs. Sobel was given a traffic citation by a highway patrolman because he believed she had not made a sufficient stop at a stop sign; she disagreed and contested the matter, but the court accepted the officer's version of the incident. This mundane incident, however, did not so disturb Mrs. Sobel as to impair her ability to serve as an impartial juror. On the contrary, it apparently had the opposite effect, i.e., it increased her impartiality: she conceded that before the incident she had been inclined to give more credibility to a police officer's word simply because he was an officer; after the event, however, she would neither automatically believe nor disbelieve such witnesses, but would judge them on their individual merits: she explained, I'd just listen to them carefully and compare them to whatever evidence was presented. [9] The prosecutor's remaining reasons for excluding Mrs. Sobel were subjective. He said that she was sixty-six years old, she also appeared to me to be a very tired-appearing person, and that To me she gave the defendants a very sympathetic look. The prosecutor did not explain either of these remarks  which were almost identical to his criticisms of Mr. Kirstel's age and demeanor  and they too are unverifiable. The fourth Jewish prospective juror discussed by the prosecutor was Robert Berliner. The first objective reason given for challenging him was that he didn't seem to be willing to commit to promises to make a decision based on the facts of the evidence and that bothered me. The record shows just the opposite. Mr. Berliner assured the court that he would obey the oath to render a verdict according to the evidence received in the courtroom.... Specifically, he stated that on the question of imposing the death penalty I wouldn't be categorically opposed. I would simply try to follow the evidence and my mind would be open. And he repeatedly stated that he could and would vote both for a verdict of guilty and a penalty of death if either was appropriate on the evidence. [10] The prosecutor nevertheless pressed the point, saying, we ask you in advance. And you don't have any hesitation in that regard, you could follow the law, follow the evidence to whatever conclusion was reached? Not knowing what the law is, not knowing what the evidence is, just promise you would follow those to a verdict, based upon them? Mr. Berliner answered, Yes, and the prosecutor went on to other matters. No ambiguity appears in such a record. Next the prosecutor asserted that Mr. Berliner said that sympathy would be a problem for him, and the prosecutor inferred that Mr. Berliner would be sympathetic to the defendants rather than to the victim. Neither assertion finds support in the record. The court first asked Mr. Berliner if he could follow an instruction to put aside sympathy for either the defendant or the victim in deciding guilt; Mr. Berliner observed that it would be hard to avoid having some such feelings, but said he could follow the instruction. And when the prosecutor returned to the point, Mr. Berliner made it plain that his observation was general in nature and he had no feelings of sympathy towards the particular defendants on trial in this case. [11] Next the prosecutor complained that Mr. Berliner had an atypical answer on the question of police officers' dealing with blacks, which made me think that the colorblindness would be a problem for him. Again the record is otherwise. There is not the slightest intimation that Mr. Berliner had a problem with the race of the defendants; on the contrary, in the brief discussion of the topic he expressly said he had No problem with excluding racial considerations from his decision on either guilt or penalty. [12] Nor is it true that Mr. Berliner's answer to the question whether the police treat Blacks differently was, as the prosecutor claimed, atypical. On the contrary, several of the sitting jurors likewise had no opinion on this question: like Mr. Berliner, they simply had no personal experience with the matter and declined to speculate on it. Thus Juror Reguero replied to the same question, I really don't have an opinion, and in words virtually identical to Mr. Berliner's (see fn. 12, ante ), said, That all depends on who you talk to. Some people feel they are [treated differently by the police] and some people feel they are not. Finally the prosecutor claimed, I had some kind of question when I was finished talking to him about whether or not an engineering standard of proof, if there is any such thing, might be  well, that might be a problem. If the prosecutor was trying to say that Mr. Berliner, who was an engineer by profession, might have used an engineering standard of proof, the record is plainly the opposite. [13] The prosecutor's remaining reasons for excluding Mr. Berliner were subjective. He began by calling Mr. Berliner weird, then said, He appears odd to me, he was dressed in a fashion that I thought was somewhat different and out of the mainstream perhaps, that He made me uncomfortable, and that I also felt I was totally unable to relate to him while I was talking to him which made me somewhat nervous.... Again the prosecutor did not further explain any of these remarks, and none is verifiable. It may be noted, however, that Mr. Berliner was evidently in the mainstream in certain fundamental respects: he was a computer design engineer at Hewlett Packard, where he had been employed for 10 years, and was married with a wife at home and 2 young sons. Although the objective reasons given by the prosecutor for challenging the Jewish jurors are thus unsupported by the record, the transcript does contain a line of questioning by the prosecutor that suggests another reason why he struck each member of this group of prospective jurors. In conducting his voir dire of Mr. Kirstel the prosecutor asked, Do you think that as a juror you would maybe be a little bit more lenient towards a black person because he's a minority? When Mr. Kirstel observed that although he too was a minority because he was Jewish he would not thus favor defendants, the prosecutor reiterated: Okay. But especially if you think in terms of being a minority in maybe a religious sense, you would bend over backwards a little bit for a racial minority? Again Mr. Kirstel replied that to the best of his ability he would not do so. But the prosecutor relentlessly pressed the point: If it came up that you thought, well, gee, you know, Jews have been [a] minority for hundreds and hundreds of years  thousands of years  and they have been oppressed at many times and the black people have been oppressed in this country and I feel sorry for the defendants because they're black, if that started coming up for you do you think you'd be able to tell  at least recognize it and do your best to set it aside? The questions say more about the prosecutor than about Mr. Kirstel. They imply a belief that a Jew could be biased in favor of these defendants simply because of the history of oppression of the Jewish people. Such a belief, however, is precisely the kind of group bias that Wheeler condemns as an impermissible ground for striking the members of that group from the jury: to act on that ground is to violate the defendant's right to trial by a jury drawn from a representative cross-section of the community under article I, section 16, of the California Constitution. (22 Cal.3d at pp. 276-277.)