Opinion ID: 1127349
Heading Depth: 4
Heading Rank: 1

Heading: Claim of denial of representative jury venire.

Text: (1a) During the jury selection process, defendant moved to quash the petit jury venire, asserting the jury selection process in Los Angeles County violated his right to a jury drawn from a fair cross-section of the community. In support of his motion, he presented evidence that, he maintained, demonstrated a prima facie case that Hispanics and African-Americans were systematically underrepresented in the jury venire. The trial court denied the motion. Defendant renews his contention. (2) Under the federal and state Constitutions, an accused is entitled to a jury drawn from a representative cross-section of the community. (U.S. Const., 6th Amend.; Cal. Const., art. I, § 16; Duren v. Missouri (1979) 439 U.S. 357, 358-367 [58 L.Ed.2d 579, 583-588, 99 S.Ct. 664]; People v. Howard (1992) 1 Cal.4th 1132, 1159 [5 Cal. Rptr.2d 268, 824 P.2d 1315].) That guarantee mandates that the pools from which juries are drawn must not systematically exclude distinctive groups in the community. ( People v. Mattson (1990) 50 Cal.3d 826, 842 [268 Cal. Rptr. 802, 789 P.2d 983].) In order to establish a prima facie violation of the fair-cross-section requirement, the defendant must show (1) that the group alleged to be excluded is a `distinctive' group in the community; (2) that the representation of this group in venires from which juries are selected is not fair and reasonable in relation to the number of such persons in the community; and (3) that this underrepresentation is due to systematic exclusion of the group in the jury-selection process. ( Duren v. Missouri, supra, 439 U.S. at p. 364 [58 L.Ed.2d at pp. 586-587]; People v. Howard, supra, 1 Cal.4th at p. 1159.) The relevant community for cross-section purposes is the judicial district in which the case is tried. ( People v. Mattson, supra, 50 Cal.3d at p. 844; Williams v. Superior Court (1989) 49 Cal.3d 736, 744-745 [263 Cal. Rptr. 503, 781 P.2d 537].) If a defendant establishes a prima facie case of systematic underrepresentation, the burden shifts to the prosecution to provide either a more precise statistical showing that no constitutionally significant disparity exists or a compelling justification for the procedure that has resulted in the disparity in the jury venire. ( People v. Sanders (1990) 51 Cal.3d 471, 491 [273 Cal. Rptr. 537, 797 P.2d 561].) As to the third element of the Duren test, a defendant does not meet the burden of demonstrating that the underrepresentation was due to systematic exclusion, by establishing only statistical evidence of a disparity. A defendant must show, in addition, that the disparity is the result of an improper feature of the jury selection process. ( People v. Howard, supra, 1 Cal.4th at p. 1160; People v. Bell (1989) 49 Cal.3d 502, 530 [262 Cal. Rptr. 1, 778 P.2d 129].) When a county's jury selection criteria are neutral with respect to race, ethnicity, sex, and religion, the defendant must identify some aspect of the manner in which those criteria are applied (the probable cause of the disparity) that is constitutionally impermissible. ( People v. Sanders, supra, 51 Cal.3d at p. 492; People v. Bell, supra, 49 Cal.3d at p. 524.) (1b) The Los Angeles County jury selection process to which defendant objects was examined in People v. Mattson, supra, 50 Cal.3d 826, where the defendant challenged the method of assigning jurors in 1985 to the Southeast Judicial District (Norwalk)  the same judicial district and the same year in which the present case was tried. In Mattson, we described the selection process as one that was peculiar to Los Angeles County in which 11 judicial districts existed at the time of defendant's trial [which commenced in 1985]. Each of those districts summoned jurors from the surrounding area, but in compliance with former section 203 of the Code of Civil Procedure, no prospective juror was assigned to a courthouse more than 20 miles from his or her residence. ( Id. at p. 843, fn. omitted.) In the present case, the county's director of jury services testified to the method of selecting prospective jurors, explaining that the master jury list for the year is compiled from the voter registration list as well as the Department of Motor Vehicles' list of persons holding driver's licenses or identifications cards. The lists are merged to create a file of names of potential eligible jurors, to whom questionnaires are sent to determine whether the person is qualified for jury service. Of the total number of questionnaires sent, approximately 56 percent are returned completed, 15 percent are undeliverable, and 29 percent are not returned. Follow-up, i.e., further attempts to contact the potentially eligible jurors from whom completed questionnaires were not received, is not performed, because it does not yield satisfactory results in relation to cost. Thus, approximately 56 percent of the mailed questionnaires provide a basis for further selection. Defense expert Dr. W. Butler presented statistical evidence of a disparity between the number of African-American and Hispanic persons who served on Norwalk jury venires and those presumptively eligible for jury service within a 20-mile radius of the Norwalk courthouse. Dr. Butler did not present any statistical or other evidence tending to establish the probable cause of this disparity, however, but opined that this underrepresentation of Hispanics and African-Americans on the jury panels was not the result of chance, but rather of some aspect of the jury selection system. He speculated that the 44 percent of the population to whom questionnaires are mailed and from whom where is no response might account for the underrepresentation, i.e., that the 44 percent comprised a primarily minority population. He explained additionally that the Central Judicial District's 20-mile limit overlapped that of the Southeast Judicial District (Norwalk), and that because the Central Judicial District had priority in the selection of eligible jurors, the Norwalk court drew from a more restricted area. In denying the motion to quash, the court found that a disparity existed between the percentage of Hispanics and African-Americans in the Norwalk area and the respective percentage of those minorities who comprised the jury venires, but that such underrepresentation was not the result of systematic exclusion of either of these groups. The court noted the selection process employed to compile the master list from the county registrar of voters and the Department of Motor Vehicles was race neutral and nondiscriminatory, and Dr. Butler's speculation as to the cause of this underrepresentation was insufficient to establish constitutionally impermissible systematic exclusion of African-Americans or Hispanics. Subsequent to the trial in the present case, this court held that the relevant community for the purpose of determining whether the cross-section requirement has been met is the judicial district in which a case is tried. ( Williams v. Superior Court, supra, 49 Cal.3d at pp. 744-746.) At defendant's trial, he challenged the jury venires as underrepresentative of the African-American and Hispanic populations within the 20-mile radius of the Norwalk courthouse, and did not present any evidence tending to establish that the percentage of these minorities on the jury venires at that courthouse was unfair in relation to the percentage of these minorities in the jury-eligible population of the Southeast Judicial District. For this reason, defendant failed to make a prima facie showing that the representation of African-Americans and Hispanics in venires from which juries are selected is not fair and reasonable in relation to the number of such persons in the community, with the meaning of Duren. (See Williams v. Superior Court, supra, 49 Cal.3d at p. 746.) Defendant maintains that, in light of Williams 's clarification of the definition of the relevant community for comparison purposes, he is entitled to have his case remanded for a new evidentiary hearing to afford him the opportunity to present evidence of a disparity under this new definition. Defendant cites no authority, however, that supports his claim to entitlement to remand, and such a remand for the purpose sought by defendant is particularly unwarranted in this case in light of our decision in People v. Mattson, supra, 50 Cal.3d 826. In that case, as we have noted above, the defendant raised a similar challenge to the jury selection system as applied in the Southeast Judicial District of Los Angeles County in the same year as the trial in the present case  1985. There the defendant's evidence demonstrated  as did the evidence in the present case  that although the area within a 20-mile radius of the Norwalk courthouse had a high population of African-Americans and Hispanics, the population of the smaller area from which the Norwalk court tended to draw jurors was more predominantly Caucasian. The county's director of jury services, however, testified that no disparity existed with respect to the percentage of Hispanics and African-Americans in the pertinent population and on Norwalk jury venires, from either a countywide perspective or at the judicial district level. We accordingly held in Mattson that the defendant had failed to satisfy the second Duren prong, and therefore had not established a prima facie violation of the cross-section guarantee. (50 Cal.3d at p. 844.) Moreover, the remand proposed by defendant is unjustified in light of the trial court's finding, supported by the record, that there was an insufficient showing that any discrepancy in the jury pool was attributable to systematic exclusion  because the procedures employed by the jury commissioner were, on their face, race neutral, and the opinion of Dr. Butler as to the cause of any disparity was not supported by empirical evidence but, rather, amounted to no more than speculation. (See People v. Cummings (1993) 4 Cal.4th 1233, 1278-1279 [18 Cal. Rptr.2d 796, 850 P.2d 1].) For these reasons, we reject defendant's claim of denial of his right to a representative jury.