Opinion ID: 2636899
Heading Depth: 3
Heading Rank: 1

Heading: Exercise of peremptory challenges.

Text: The prosecutor exercised 14 peremptory challenges in jury selection. Nine were directed to jurors appellant asserts had expressed reluctance to vote for death  Prospective Jurors G., H., T., C., R., J., 0., H., and L. As a result, appellant argues, no juror who had any reservations about capital punishment remained on the jury. This, he asserts, denied him his federal and state constitutional rights to due process, heightened reliability of the penalty verdict, and a neutral, representative, penalty phase jury. Appellant concedes that this court has rejected his claim insofar as it relates to the exercise of peremptory challenges. ( People v. Davenport (1995) 11 Cal.4th 1171, 1202, 47 Cal.Rptr.2d 800, 906 P.2d 1068; People v. Crittenden, supra, 9 Cal.4th 83, 153, 36 Cal.Rptr.2d 474, 885 P.2d 887; People v. Turner, supra, 37 Cal.3d 302, 315, 208 Cal.Rptr. 196, 690 P.2d 669.) He urges the court to reconsider the issue, arguing that use of a peremptory challenge is just as damaging to a defendant's rights as erroneous excusal of a scrupled juror for cause. Appellant relies on a statement made by the United States Supreme Court in Gray v. Mississippi (1987) 481 U.S. 648, 658-659, 107 S.Ct. 2045, 95 L.Ed.2d 622, which he selectively edits: To permit the exclusion for cause of ... prospective jurors based on their views of the death penalty.... `stack[s] the deck against the [defendant]. To execute [such a] death sentence would deprive him of his life without due process of law.' In fact, however, the court preceded that statement, which actually refers to the exclusion of other prospective jurors ( Gray v. Mississippi supra, 481 U.S. at p. 658, 107 S.Ct. 2045), with express recognition that the state has an interest in removing those jurors who would `frustrate the State's legitimate interest in administering constitutional capital sentencing schemes by not following their oaths.' ( Ibid. ) We decline the invitation to reconsider our view that the prosecutor may use peremptory challenges to excuse death penalty skeptics. A prosecutor may have many reasons for believing that a prospective juror will not fairly consider an argument that death is an appropriate penalty. The juror's views about the death penalty, although not clear enough to warrant exclusion for cause, may be among those reasons. Moreover, we do not share appellant's assumption that jurors who are not death penalty skeptics will not return a reliable verdict. The voir dire conducted in this case does not suggest that any juror selected would not conscientiously consider all of the evidence and whether life without possibility of parole was an appropriate penalty. Finally, appellant failed to object on this ground and exercised only 17 of the 26 peremptory challenges available to him. He had it within his power to alter the composition of the jury of which he now complains.