Opinion ID: 1192049
Heading Depth: 4
Heading Rank: 2

Heading: Former Code of Civil Procedure Section 204.7

Text: (5) In conjunction with his pretrial challenge to the composition of the jury venire, defendant also claimed the master jury list was assembled in violation of former Code of Civil Procedure section 204.7, at the time a relatively new statute. (Stats. 1980, ch. 81, § 35, p. 207, eff. July 1, 1981.) [9] The evidence produced in support of the motion showed that at the time of his 1981 trial, Kern County relied solely on voter registration rolls to compile its jury lists. Although an attempt was made to incorporate and integrate the names of those holding driver's licenses and identification cards from the DMV, the county intended to complete this project only in time to select the 1982 master jury list. The jury list was assembled once a year and the list in use at the time of defendant's motion (November 1981) had been compiled the previous year. For Kern County to expand and use multiple source lists any sooner would have cost between $15,000 and $40,000 for a computer program to eliminate duplicate names (in order to maintain the randomness of the selection procedure). At the time of defendant's trial, former Code of Civil Procedure section 204.7 provided that (a) Source lists of jurors shall identify persons who reside in the county, and who are 18 years of age or older, shall include those who are registered voters, and to the extent that systems for producing jury lists can be practically modified, without significant cost, shall also include those who have been licensed or issued an identification card pursuant to Article 3 ... and Article 5 ... of Chapter 1 of Division 6 of the Vehicle Code. Qualified jury lists and master jury lists derived from the source lists shall be prepared so as to reasonably minimize duplication of names. (Italics added.) The trial court denied defendant's motion at a November 1981 hearing, concluding that the section did not become effective until January 1982, if then. In addition, the court specifically declined to make a finding on the financial feasibility of the immediate use of multiple source lists. Although the trial court did not explain its decision regarding the effective date of the newly enacted statute, it appears the court believed that because Kern County assembled its master jury list only once each year and the list for 1981 had already been chosen, the new statute would affect only the master jury list for 1982, which would supplant the previous year's jury list in January 1982. The trial court did not cite any authority for its interpretation of the former code section, making it difficult to evaluate the correctness of its ruling. However, even assuming arguendo the trial court erred, defendant cannot prevail. As the evidence below made clear, Kern County was, at the time defendant made his motion, in the process of complying with the statutory requirement to integrate DMV lists into the master jury list. Recognizing that mandating overnight changes was unwise, the Legislature only required that systems for producing jury lists be modified to include DMV lists if such changes could be done without significant cost. Because the record shows the cost of immediate compliance would have been several thousand dollars, and that compliance would occur shortly, we conclude the motion was properly denied because the record shows the master jury list could not be practically modified, without significant cost.... (Former Code Civ. Proc., § 204.7.)