Opinion ID: 2617796
Heading Depth: 1
Heading Rank: 3

Heading: Judicial District as Community.

Text: (4b) Having concluded that there is no constitutional limitation on the Legislature to create a relevant community for cross-section purposes, we must determine whether in creating superior court (or judicial) districts in Los Angeles County, the Legislature intended to define community in that county as the judicial district where the case is tried. Sections 69640-69650 of the Government Code, enacted in 1959, set out the guidelines for the creation of superior court districts in Los Angeles County. Of particular relevance to this case are sections 69641, [9] 69643, [10] 69644, [11] and 69645. [12] The considerations that prompted the legislation shed some light on the goals sought to be achieved. Following World War II and the population explosion in California, in 1957 the Legislature created the Joint Judiciary Committee on the Administration of Justice (Joint Committee) to deal with the urgent need to improve judicial efficiency in the Los Angeles metropolitan area. At the time, the backlog of cases in Los Angeles County Superior Court was particularly acute, having doubled from 6,300 cases in 1952 to 14,700 in 1958. In the period from 1923 through 1957, a series of legislative enactments (branch court bills) had enabled cities to obtain branch courts. To check the proliferation of Los Angeles County one-judge branch courts, the Legislature in 1953 and again in 1957 passed laws increasing the mandatory minimum distance between a projected new court of an otherwise eligible city and the nearest city that had an existing branch court. By 1959, only the 14-mile rule of the 1957 legislation was holding back the flood of otherwise mandatory courts in the Los Angeles area. (Joint Com. Rep., at p. 28.) The Joint Committee did not encounter objections to the branch courts as such; rather, objections focused on the legislative formulas for their creation. The branch court system, the Joint Committee was told, should be replaced by a system of courts located by districts based on population, need, and convenience, regardless of city boundary lines. Consistent with this view, the Los Angeles County Board of Supervisors recommended the development of branch superior court operations according to a master plan, in the interest of service and economy. The Joint Committee, in turn, recommended the enactment of legislation authorizing the Board of Supervisors of Los Angeles County to divide the county into 9 or 10 superior court districts, with power to designate, with the approval of the judges, one or more locations in each district for the holding of court sessions. (Joint Com. Rep. at p. 33.) Senate Bill No. 992, authorizing the creation of such districts in Los Angeles, unanimously passed the Legislature in 1959. The bill was codified as sections 69640-69650 of the Government Code. (Stats. 1959, ch. 1371, § 1, p. 3642.) While the Legislature did not explicitly designate the superior court districts as communities for the purpose of assessing the representativeness of jury panels, the considerations that prompted creation of the districts in the first place  the practical realities of the county's unique demographics, its geographical expanse, and the need for judicial efficiency  convince us that the Legislature intended that the districts serve as the community for determination of jury impartiality. In a sense, the districts were to be microcosms of an entity  the Los Angeles Superior Court  that had become unmanageable and inefficient as a single unit. The code sections relating to the establishment of superior court judicial districts and the sections relating to jury selection and management are easily harmonized. Read together, the statutes manifest an unmistakable legislative intent that the courts of the district serve the population within its boundaries. [13] Use of the superior court judicial district as the appropriate community in Los Angeles County effectuates this legislative purpose. [14] Having defined the community which the jury venires must fairly represent, we return to the second prong of the Duren test which the defendant must satisfy to establish a prima facie violation of the fair cross-section requirement. The defendant must show that the representation of the excluded group in venires from which juries are selected is not fair and reasonable in relation to the number of such persons in the community. ( Duren v. Missouri, supra, 439 U.S. at p. 364 [58 L.Ed.2d at p. 587].) Defendant challenged the jury venires as underrepresentative of the Black population of Los Angeles County. At no time did he argue that the percentage of Blacks on the jury panels in the West District was unfair in relation to the percentage of Blacks in the jury-eligible population of the West District. Accordingly, defendant has failed to show that the representation of Blacks in venires from which juries are selected is not fair and reasonable in relation to the number of such persons in the community. Finally, absent a finding of underrepresentation, we do not reach the third prong of Duren, i.e., whether the underrepresentation is due to systematic exclusion of the group in the jury selection process. ( Duren, supra, 439 U.S. at p. 364 [58 L.Ed.2d at p. 587].)