Opinion ID: 1359265
Heading Depth: 3
Heading Rank: 2

Heading: Jury Cross-section

Text: The trial court excused 14 potential jurors after they said that their employers would not pay them throughout the anticipated length of the trial. The court did not ask these potential jurors, and they did not explicitly state, that for them jury service would be a hardship. Both defendants argue that because the 14 prospective jurors did not say explicitly that jury service would be a hardship, the trial court lacked sufficient information to discharge them. Defendants rely on former Code of Civil Procedure section 200, which at the time of defendants' trial permitted a trial court to excuse potential jurors upon finding that the jury service would entail undue hardship.... [4] Defendants also assert that because the 14 discharged prospective jurors were all wage earners, the trial court systematically excluded a distinct class of jurors (wage earners), thereby violating their constitutionally guaranteed right to a fair and impartial jury drawn from a representative cross-section of the community. ( People v. Wheeler (1978) 22 Cal.3d 258, 266 [148 Cal. Rptr. 890, 583 P.2d 748].) Neither defendant, however, objected to the trial court's removal of any of the 14 prospective jurors, and neither complained that the court had systematically excluded wage earners from the jury. Defendants thus have not preserved this issue for appeal. ( People v. Mickey (1991) 54 Cal.3d 612, 664-665 [286 Cal. Rptr. 801, 818 P.2d 84].)