Opinion ID: 844235
Heading Depth: 4
Heading Rank: 2

Heading: The Facts Regarding the Challenged Prescreening

Text: The trial court mailed out 7,000 summonses to prospective jurors for defendant's pending trial. On June 9, 1999, 700 people answered those summonses and appeared before the jury commissioner. During the screening that ensued that day, the commissioner excused 481 individuals from jury duty. The trial court determined that it needed a larger panel and instructed the commissioner to qualify more prospective jurors from regular panels that would be assembled at the courthouse on Mondays and Tuesdays until July 21, 1999. [6] On that date, 29 individuals who had previously been qualified as prospective jurors on June 9 failed to return to the jury facility. The remaining jury panel was sworn in, and those jurors filled out questionnaires. On July 27, 1999, the trial court commenced voir dire of the jury panel. The defense was aware San Diego County utilizes jury commissioners to conduct prescreening of potential jurors for death penalty cases. In October 1998, defendant made a motion for a fair and impartial trial in which she asked the trial court to provide guidance by advising the jury commissioner to exclude (1) individuals who either request service on a death penalty case or seek to avoid service on a death penalty case, and (2) potential jurors who had been excused from another case during jury selection or had recently served on another trial. In December 1998, defense counsel explained to the trial court that, as to the categories of jurors included in its motion to ensure a fair and impartial trial, it was requesting that rather than go through the voir dire process and weed those jurors out, to just deal with them up front and exclude them from the panel during the preliminary screening that would be implemented by the jury commissioner on June 9, 1999. Defendant did not object to the fact that the jury commissioner would make initial decisions regarding exclusion of potential jurors; instead, she sought to use that procedure for her own benefit. During the hearing on her motion, defendant neither asked to be present during the jury commissioner's preliminary screening, nor for those proceedings or any conversations between the trial court and the jury commissioner to be recorded. On December 14, 1998, the prosecutor asked the trial court to deny the motion because Code of Civil Procedure section 203 sets forth those people [who] are ineligible to sit as jurors . . . and the request by the defense is not covered by that section. In denying the motion, the trial court agreed that the exclusions sought by defendant were not covered by the cited rules of procedure. The trial court then explained that it would instruct the jury commissioner not to provide prospective jurors with information regarding what case they would be sitting on or whether the case was civil or criminal. It was apparent from the court's ruling that the jury prescreening procedure, including the summons notices and the jury commissioner's prescreening, would eliminate individuals who fit within the exceptions to juror eligibility set forth in section 203 of the Code of Civil Procedure, including the exception for those who are not possessed of sufficient knowledge of the English language. (Code Civ. Proc., § 203, subd. (a)(6).) Nevertheless, at no time during this hearing or thereafter did defendant object in the trial court to any language in the summonses sent to prospective jurors, including the sentence My native language is ________, which was to be filled out if the person summoned had checked the box indicating he or she was not qualified to serve as a juror because I DO NOT HAVE SUFFICIENT KNOWLEDGE OF THE ENGLISH LANGUAGE to act as a juror. Similarly, defendant did not object to the role of the jury commissioner in eliminating those not eligible for jury service under Code of Civil Procedure section 203. Furthermore, at the hearing on the motion, defendant did not request that the jury commissioner's prescreening with prospective jurors or the commissioner's conversations with the trial court be recorded. On February 9, 1999, in the course of discussing the proposed jury questionnaire, the trial court noted that it would need to send out juror notices . . . in the thousands to get enough folks to appear for the jury duty and that those notices would need to include an estimate of time that the trial would take. [7] On March 1, during a hearing on defendant's motion for a continuance, the trial court commented that it would be summoning 7,000 jurors in anticipation of defendant's case. Later that day, while discussing the mechanics of jury selection, the trial court said it was hoping to have at least 500 fill out the questionnaire. On May 6, the court indicated that the 7,000 summonses had been sent in April and that it was anticipating eventually working with 500 questionnaires. Over the months during which jury screening and selection was discussed, defendant never questioned why only 500 prospective jurors would be filling out questionnaires if 7,000 had been sent summonses. On May 26, the trial court mentioned it was conducting meetings with the jury commissioner regarding the jury screening in defendant's case. Defendant raised no objection at that time; she did not request that those meetings be recorded or that she attend them. Thereafter, the trial court explained that the jury commissioner would screen prospective jurors regarding whether they were able to serve on a lengthy trial based on the following criteria: financial hardship, prepaid vacation; medical appointments that cannot be changed, or full-time school enrollment. Defendant did not request more detailed information regarding the proposed time qualification or hardship process, although the trial court offered to show counsel such information if you're interested at all. Similarly, at no point did defendant object to the portion of the summons notices sent to potential prospective jurors that included a REQUEST FOR EXCUSE SECTION that listed claimed hardships. At that same May 26 hearing, defendant, through counsel, did insist that she wanted to be present when the information was read to the prospective jurors and when those prospective jurors would be told that they would need to fill out a lengthy questionnaire. At that time, defendant did not ask to be present at any of the other prescreening procedures, including those that involved the jury commissioner's preliminary screening of potential jurors. Defendant had surgery on May 29, and was not present at the next hearing on June 2. The trial court suggested continuing the trial to July to give defendant time to recuperate. The court then suggested a complicated plan to preserve some of the prospective jurors from the summonses sent in April and to pick up additional prospective jurors on Mondays and Tuesdays when they have their normal jury pool. The court explained that its plan would allow the jury commissioner to start qualifying people for the July trial date and would save the expense of sending out new summons notices. The trial court then commented that the beauty of its proposal was that by the end of Wednesday, there would be a nice random list of time qualified jurors. Based on his misunderstanding of the proposal, William Rafael, one of defendant's attorneys, interjected, I know the court noted the beauty of it. The ugly of it is that our client won't be present. That's a problem in a capital case. The following exchange ensued: THE COURT: [¶] Present for what? [¶] MR. RAFAEL: For the time qualifying of the jury. Last week the court spoke when we talked about coming in on the 9th, and the conversation dealt with having our client, Mr. Garcia [(defendant's other attorney)], and Ms. Regan [(the prosecutor)] present in the jury assembly room[¶] THE COURT: Right. [¶] MR. RAFAEL: so that introductions can be made.  (Italics added.) The trial court then clarified that the previously requested introductions were scheduled to occur before we do the questionnaire, though. So, see, [defendant] would be present. It would be exactly like we were going to do it. Acknowledging his prior confusion, Rafael withdrew his objection to defendant's absence: MR. RAFAEL: So we're just going to do the time qualifying next week? [¶] THE COURT: . . . What we were going to do next week is they time qualify. . . . Then we would have all come down, introduced ourselves, read the information and give them the juror questionnaires. I anticipate [defendant] would be present whatever date we're going to start this at. We do it the exact same way we [were] going to do it. . . . And we're all down there, then, with your client, and we do the questionnaires. [¶] MR. RAFAEL: Okay. So I understand the step of introduction is not going to take place [during the prequalifying of the jury], the questionnaires will not be distributed at that point? [¶] THE COURT: Right. As promised, defendant and her counsel were present in the jury assembly room when the clerk swore the venire on July 21. The trial court introduced defendant and all counsel, read the information, and explained the process of filling out the questionnaire.