Opinion ID: 2572600
Heading Depth: 1
Heading Rank: 3

Heading: denial of defense motion for two juries

Text: Defendant sought empanelment of two juries  the first, not death qualified, to sit at the guilt phase of his capital trial, and the second, to be death qualified, in the event a penalty phase was required. After a hearing, the court denied the motion without prejudice to its renewal at the conclusion of the guilt phase. Defendant did not renew the motion.
Defendant contends the trial court violated his right to an impartial jury at the guilt phase (U.S. Const., 6th Amend.; Cal. Const., art. I, § 16) by excluding for cause from the venire those jurors who would automatically vote against imposing death at the penalty phase. He acknowledges that the United States Supreme Court has rejected his claim under the federal Constitution. ( Lockhart v. McCree (1986) 476 U.S. 162, 182-183, 106 S.Ct. 1758, 90 L.Ed.2d 137.) Nonetheless, he urges us to reach a different result on independent state grounds under the due process and jury trial protections offered by article I, sections 7, 15, and 16 of the California Constitution. In People v. Jackson (1996) 13 Cal.4th 1164, 56 Cal.Rptr.2d 49, 920 P.2d 1254, we considered the social science evidence the defendant there offered to show that death-qualified juries are more prone to convict than those not thus qualified, and we concluded that such evidence does not support a constitutional prohibition of death qualification. ( Id. at pp. 1198-1199, 56 Cal.Rptr.2d 49, 920 P.2d 1254; see also People v. Catlin (2001) 26 Cal.4th 81, 112, 109 Cal.Rptr.2d 31, 26 P.3d 357 [state constitutional right to impartial jury not violated by exclusion of persons opposed to death penalty].) Defendant here concedes that his claim is essentially the same claim that was before us in Jackson. More recently, we rejected such a claim after concluding the defendant presents no good reason to reconsider our ruling as to the California Constitution. ( People v. Steele (2002) 27 Cal.4th 1230, 1243, 120 Cal.Rptr.2d 432, 47 P.3d 225.) Defendant here has likewise failed to make a compelling case for us to revisit this issue.
Defendant contends that California's jury selection process in capital cases, which requires the exclusion of jurors whose views would prevent or impair the performance of their duties as jurors, violated his state and federal rights to a jury drawn from a fair cross-section of the community by excluding from juries in capital cases a cognizable group of persons, and denied him equal protection under both the federal and state Constitutions. Even assuming defendant has preserved the claim, which he did not raise in the trial court, the high court has rejected the view that individuals who can be characterized as a group defined solely in terms of shared attitudes toward imposing the death penalty are a distinctive group for fair cross-section claims under the federal Constitution. ( Lockhart v. McCree, supra, 476 U.S. at p. 174, 106 S.Ct. 1758.) We too have rejected this claim under our state Constitution ( People v. Jackson, supra, 13 Cal.4th at p. 1198, 56 Cal.Rptr.2d 49, 920 P.2d 1254; People v. Ashmus (1991) 54 Cal.3d 932, 956, 2 Cal.Rptr.2d 112, 820 P.2d 214), and defendant offers no persuasive reason for us to reconsider that holding.