Opinion ID: 2617650
Heading Depth: 2
Heading Rank: 5

Heading: The Vicinage Defined as the County.

Text: The Sixth Amendment vicinage right guarantees a criminal defendant the right to a trial in the State and district encompassing the scene of the crime. That district, states the Sixth Amendment, shall have been previously ascertained by law. Were we to follow a literal interpretation of the Sixth Amendment, we would conclude, as have a number of other jurisdictions, that a criminal defendant is merely entitled to a jury drawn from within the federal judicial district wherein the crime was committed. (See especially Zicarelli v. Gray, supra, 543 F.2d 466; People v. Taylor, supra, 350 N.E.2d 600; Com. v. Duteau, supra, 424 N.E.2d 1119.) We decline to interpret a state criminal defendant's vicinage right so literally. A literal interpretation has little meaning in our system, where the Legislature has created jurisdictional boundaries that bear no relationship to the federal judicial districts. [8] We also reject the narrow interpretation of vicinage proposed in Jones, supra, 9 Cal.3d 546. Jones, decided 15 years ago by a bare majority of this court, stands virtually alone in its requirement that the Sixth Amendment entitles a defendant to a jury panel that includes residents of the superior court judicial district in which the crime was committed. Jones lacks foundation in Sixth Amendment principles and is contrary to the majority of decisions addressing the question. We have looked for direction in the federal cases that have analyzed the Sixth Amendment vicinage right. We find no violation of the Sixth Amendment vicinage right in the procedures followed in Los Angeles County for selection of jury panels  panels which include residents of the county, not limited to residents of the municipal or superior court judicial district where the crime was committed. In sum, to the extent it is inconsistent with the views expressed in this opinion, we overrule Jones and hold that in California the boundaries of the vicinage are coterminous with the boundaries of the county. [9]