Opinion ID: 2546413
Heading Depth: 4
Heading Rank: 2

Heading: Failure to Hold Sequestered Voir Dire

Text: Defendant first contends the trial court committed prejudicial error by failing to sequester the jurors and question them individually. He admits the procedure used was authorized by section 223 of the Code of Civil Procedure, added to the code when the electorate passed Proposition 115 in 1990. That section provides in part: Voir dire of any prospective jurors shall, where practicable, occur in the presence of the other jurors in all criminal cases, including death penalty cases. Defendant nevertheless contends that nonsequestered voir dire tends generally to produce juries more likely to return a guilty verdict than to acquit, and more likely to choose the death penalty over life imprisonment. More specifically, defendant contends the nonsequestered voir dire in this case allowed prospective jurors to hear (and thus become prejudiced by) concerns expressed by some jurors about possible gang involvement in the trial, as well as the nature of some pretrial publicity. Defendant failed to object to the trial court's decision to conduct voir dire in open court and thus failed to preserve the issue for appeal. ( People v. Avena (1996) 13 Cal.4th 394, 413, 53 Cal.Rptr.2d 301, 916 P.2d 1000.) Had he moved for sequestered, individual voir dire and the trial court denied the motion, we would have had to determine whether the trial court abused its discretion. ( People v. Waidla (2000) 22 Cal.4th 690, 713-714, 94 Cal. Rptr.2d 396, 996 P.2d 46.) Conceding that section 223 of the Code of Civil Procedure creates a preference for nonsequestered voir dire in capital cases, and that Proposition 115 was designed to supersede the contrary rule established in Hovey v. Superior Court (1980) 28 Cal.3d 1, 80-81, 168 Cal.Rptr. 128, 616 P.2d 1301 (see People v. Gurule (2002) 28 Cal.4th 557, 596, fn. 6, 123 Cal.Rptr.2d 345, 51 P.3d 224), defendant nevertheless argues the trial court would have abused its discretion in denying a motion for sequestered voir dire because the procedures followed by the court denied him critical information about the prospective jurors. He cites Tapia v. Superior Court (1991) 53 Cal.3d 282, 299, 279 Cal.Rptr. 592, 807 P.2d 434, in support, where we explained that [t]here is no reason to believe that the new voir dire rules will be applied to deprive [defendants] of any information to which voir dire is legitimately directed. He does not, however, indicate how the nonsequestered voir dire procedure deprived him of relevant information, given the detailed jury questionnaires and the follow-up questions asked by the trial court. Accordingly, even were we to assume defendant had properly preserved this claim with a timely objection, it is meritless.