Opinion ID: 1195356
Heading Depth: 1
Heading Rank: 3

Heading: Claim of denial of representative jury

Text: In providing jury panels from which defendant's jury would be selected, the trial court ordered the Jury Commissioner of Los Angeles County to select jurors from within a 20-mile radius of the Van Nuys courthouse, where the trial was held. Prospective jurors were selected on October 13, 14, and 15, 1987, but only on October 14 did the jury commissioner's office employ the method of selection ordered by the court. On October 13 and 15, prospective jurors were selected by the so-called bull's-eye method. [13] Under this countywide method, the jury commissioner explained: [T]he computer is asked to randomly select jurors from this pool of qualified prospective jurors.... [¶] Let's assume that we have out of the possible 32 court locations, Los Angeles County where jurors can be assigned, that we have 10 court locations [needing jurors]. A juror will be by computer randomly selected, ... and then [the computer] asks of these are any of these courts within 20 miles of this person's residence? And then if the answer is yes, then assign that juror to the closest court of those courts that are within 20 miles. The defendant made a motion to quash the venire on the ground it did not constitute a representative cross-section of the community. In a hearing on the motion, the jury commissioner testified that 9.9 percent of the population living within a 20-mile radius of the Van Nuys courthouse and presumptively eligible for jury service was African-American. A defense expert testified, on the other hand, that the percentage of African-American persons living within that radius was 10.18 percent. On October 13, the percentage of African-American persons called for service in defendant's case was 1.87 percent, and on October 15, it was 2.07 percent. On October 14, 6.43 percent of the persons called for service in defendant's case were African-American. Accordingly, as the trial court stated and defendant concedes, 4.5 percent of the total number of prospective jurors available to serve in panels from which defendant was to select his jury were African-American. Defendant's expert testified that the bull's-eye method described above produced an underrepresentation of African-American persons compared with their presence in the 20-mile radius of the Van Nuys courthouse, and the expert outlined an alternative method of selecting the jury venire based upon census tracts that would readily produce a representative venire. The trial court denied the motion to quash, determining that the difference between the percentage of African-American prospective jurors (4.5 percent) in defendant's case, and the percentage of African-American persons eligible for jury duty in the 20-mile area served by the Van Nuys courthouse (9.9 percent) was not statistically significant. In addition, the trial court determined that defendant had failed to establish systematic exclusion of a cognizable class, because the county's use of Department of Motor Vehicles and voter registration lists indicated that the county was doing all that reasonably could be expected to achieve a fair cross-section. Defendant renews his claim that his federal constitutional right to a jury drawn from a representative cross-section of the community was violated. (U.S. Const., 6th Amend.; Duren v. Missouri (1979) 439 U.S. 357, 358-367, 99 S.Ct. 664, 58 L.Ed.2d 579.) That right guarantees that the pools from which juries are drawn must not systematically exclude distinctive groups in the community. [Citation.] `In order to establish a prima facie violation of the fair-cross-section requirement, the defendant must show (1) that the group alleged to be excluded is a distinctive group in the community; (2) that the representation of this group in venires from which juries are selected is not fair and reasonable in relation to the number of such persons in the community; and (3) that this underrepresentation is due to systematic exclusion of the group in the jury-selection process.' [Citations.] The relevant `community' for cross-section purposes is the judicial district in which the case is tried.  ( People v. Horton (1995) 11 Cal.4th 1068, 1087-1088, 47 Cal. Rptr.2d 516, 906 P.2d 478, italics added, quoting Duren v. Missouri supra, 439 U.S. at p. 364, 99 S.Ct. 664.) Defendant contends the method employed to select the venire from which his panels were drawn systematically caused underrepresentation of African-American persons. Defendant failed to establish a prima facie case of systematic underrepresentation of a cognizable class, because he failed to refer to the appropriate community in attempting to prove the denial of a representative jury venire. He attempted to meet the second prong of the Duren test by demonstrating a disparity between the percentage of African-American persons in the venire and the percentage of African-American persons eligible for jury service who lived within 20 miles of the Van Nuys courthouse. As noted, the appropriate community with which to establish such a comparison was the judicial district in which the Van Nuys courthouse is situated. ( People v. Horton, supra, 11 Cal.4th at pp. 1087-1088, 47 Cal.Rptr.2d 516, 906 P.2d 478; People v. Mattson (1990) 50 Cal.3d 826, 844, 268 Cal.Rptr. 802, 789 P.2d 983; Williams v. Superior Court (1989) 49 Cal.3d 736, 745, 263 Cal. Rptr. 503, 781 P.2d 537.) [14] In any event, as the trial court found, there was insufficient showing that any underrepresentation was due to a systematic exclusion. For these reasons, defendant failed to make the prima facie showing required by Duren, and his claim accordingly is rejected. ( People v. Horton, supra, 11 Cal.4th at pp. 1088-1090, 47 Cal.Rptr.2d 516, 906 P.2d 478; People v. Mattson, supra, 50 Cal.3d at p. 844, 268 Cal.Rptr. 802, 789 P.2d 983.)