Court Opinion

ID: 9570391
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-21 20:22:47.588648+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T12:07:12.748795
License: Public Domain

*102BROUSSARD, J.
I respectfully dissent.
While the Legislature may properly designate a portion of the county as the “community” from which the jury venire is drawn, it has not done so in San Diego County. The branch courts in that county do not constitute autonomous judicial districts, but function as units of a countywide system. The San Diego County Superior Court thus serves the entire county, which constitutes the relevant community. Both the state and federal Constitutions require that jury venires represent a fair cross-section of the countywide population.
I am troubled by the majority’s casual treatment of a fundamental constitutional right. Relying only on the fact that it has not discovered any substantive limitation on the Legislature’s power to establish the boundaries of the “community,” the majority leaps to the unsupportable conclusion that judicial administrators are also competent to do so. This position treats the definition of the “community” as a purely administrative function, and ignores the obvious impact on a criminal defendant’s constitutional right to a representative jury. As Justice Staniforth aptly noted in his dissent to the opinion of the Court of Appeal, “it is constitutionally intolerable to abridge a defendant’s right to trial by his peers based on an arbitrary, nonrepresentative, bureaucratic choice resting on undisclosed and possibly indefensible considerations.”
The Sixth Amendment guarantees criminal defendants “the right to a speedy and public trial, by an impartial jury of the State and district wherein the crime shall have been committed, which district shall have been previously ascertained by law . . . .” (U.S. Const., 6th Amend.) As the majority points out, the history and development of the Sixth Amendment supports the authority of the Legislature to define the community from which the jury venire is drawn.
Decisions of this court have affirmed this principle. In People v. Jones (1973) 9 Cal.3d 546, 554 [108 Cal.Rptr. 345, 510 P.2d 705], we stated that “[i]t is undeniable that the Sixth Amendment. . . allows the Legislature to define the total size of [the area from which jurors are drawn] by defining the size of the judicial districts.” While Jones addresses the vicinage requirement rather than the fair cross-section requirement, it would be anomalous to recognize the Legislature’s authority to define the area from which jurors are drawn for one purpose and not the other. Thus, the issue in this case is not whether the Legislature is authorized to define the “community” as an area contained within the county, but whether it has done so in San Diego County.
*103Pursuant to constitutional requirements, “[i]t is the policy of the State of California that all persons selected for jury service shall be selected at random from a fair cross section of the population of the area served by the court. ...” (Code Civ. Proc., § 197, italics added.)1 Generally speaking the territorial jurisdiction or “area served” by a state trial court is the county in which it sits. (Pen. Code, § 691, subd. 3; People v. Jones (1964) 228 Cal.App.2d 74, 86 [39 Cal. Rptr. 302].) Thus, absent legislation redefining the “community,” the jury for felony trials must represent a fair cross-section of the countywide population.
The majority attributes unwarranted significance to the Legislature’s creation of the North County Branch of the San Diego County Superior Court. (Gov. Code, § 69595.5.) It finds that the creation of branch courts is functionally equivalent to the creation of judicial districts and operates to redefine the community from which jurors are to be drawn. This position, however, is not supported by legislative enactments on the subject.
The Legislature treats the creation of branch courts differently from the creation of judicial districts. Government Code section 69643 provides: “Whenever the board of supervisors finds that changes in population make necessary or expedient the change of boundaries of any district, the change of, addition of, or elimination of any location at which sessions of the superior court are to be held, or the creation of new districts, it may make such changes by ordinance.” Thus, the Legislature has delegated its authority to the board of supervisors to create branch courts or judicial districts. However, it has placed specific limitations on the board’s power to create judicial districts which do not apply to the creation of branch courts.
Government Code section 69641 limits the creation of new judicial districts to counties with a population of at least 4 million.2 Government Code section 69644 requires that each district contain at least 250,000 people.3 Minimum population requirements prevent the creation of artificially small *104“communities.” Should the Legislature elect to utilize districts as the “communities” from which jurors are drawn, this safeguard both ensures a sufficient number of eligible jurors from which to create a venire and prevents excessive dilution or distortion of the various segments represented in the larger “community.”
Unlike decisions by the board of supervisors to create new branch courts, decisions to create new districts are subject to legislative review. Government Code section 69650 provides: “At the next succeeding general session of the Legislature following division of a county into districts, or following any change in the boundaries of a district, the Legislature may change the boundaries of the district if he [sic] deems such action advisable.” This section could be read as providing for subsequent legislative approval and codification of decisions regarding districts made by county supervisors; it could also be read as providing for legislative power to amend those decisions. In either case, the section contemplates subsequent legislative review of county ordinances which create new districts or change existing district boundaries. The distinctions drawn by the Legislature between the creation of judicial districts and the creation of branch courts support the conclusion that the county cannot create branch courts and then treat them like judicial districts.
Furthermore, local rules make it clear that the superior court branches in San Diego County do not operate as independent judicial districts. Jurisdiction over criminal trials does not lie exclusively in the district in which the crime was committed. All felonies initiated by indictment are heard in the Downtown Branch. (San Diego County Super. Ct. Rules, div. III, § 1, rule 1.3.) Cases arising in the North County Branch may be transferred to the Downtown Branch for “good cause” or upon the supervising judge’s determination that the “limitations” of the North County Branch make such a transfer appropriate. (Ibid.) Since one branch court may try cases which were initiated in another branch, the branches do not exclusively serve separate “areas” or “communities.”
The majority finds further support in Code of Civil Procedure section 206a for its conclusion that the Legislature has authorized the creation of a “community” smaller than the county. That section permits selection of the jury venire from supervisorial districts in which branch courts are located, or supervisorial districts adjacent thereto, where the branches are located in cities other than the county seat.4 The North County, however, does not *105correspond either to a single supervisorial district, or to a combination of adjacent districts. Section 206a confers no authority on the superior court to draw “district” lines which do not conform to existing supervisorial boundaries, and by implication withholds such authority.
Ironically, the majority adopts the opinion of the same court which previously held that the Fifth Supervisorial District in San Diego County “cannot be considered the community for purposes of assessing the jury venire.” (Johnson v. Superior Court (1984) 163 Cal.App.3d 85, 88 [209 Cal.Rptr. 425].) That decision was based on two grounds. First, Code of Civil Procedure section 206a does not convert a supervisorial district into a judicial district. (Ibid.) Second, the supervisorial district is smaller than North County, (Ibid.) After finding that “neither the Fifth nor North County is a separate judicial district,” the Court of Appeal analyzed defendant’s claim with the assumption that the county constituted the relevant community. (Ibid.)
The majority ignores half of the holding in Johnson and asserts that because the North County area is coterminous with the area from which the jurors are drawn, any previous constitutional defect is cured. However, just as Code of Civil Procedure section 206a does not convert a supervisorial district into a judicial district, neither does Government Code section 69595.5 convert North County into a judicial district. The majority also ignores the explicit statement in Johnson that North County is not a judicial district (ibid.), and fails to explain by what process it has since become one.
Neither Government Code section 69595.5 nor Code of Civil Procedure section 206a creates judicial districts in San Diego County. Given the far-reaching implications for jury composition, we should not infer such an intent absent express legislative direction. The legislative process provides for careful and informed decisions, based on assessment of relevant data and input from constituents whose interests are at stake. In contrast, the decision to treat the North County area as the “community” was made by a court administrator, presumably for reasons of administrative convenience. I cannot equate this bureaucratic choice with a considered legislative decision.
The jury venire for state criminal trials may be drawn from judicial districts within the county if the Legislature expressly creates such districts and provides that they will operate as “communities.” However, absent legislative redefinition, the county is the area served by a state trial court and constitutes the relevant community for purposes of assessing the composition of the jury venire. Juries in San Diego County must be drawn from and represent a fair cross-section of the countywide population.
*106In view of the fact that the matter is technically moot, the judgment of the Court of Appeal should be reversed and that court should be directed to discharge the alternative writ and deny the petition.
Bird, C. J., and Reynoso, J., concurred.
On February 24, 1987, the opinion was modified to read as printed above.

 See also Code of Civil Procedure section 193 which defines a trial court as “a body of persons returned from the citizens of the area served by the court. . . .’ (italics added); Code of Civil Procedure section 203 which requires that persons listed as available for service as trial jurors be “fairly representative of the population in the area served by the court. . . .” (italics added); and Code of Civil Procedure section 204.5 which requires that the plan for selection of jurors be “designed to insure a random selection of a fair cross section of the persons residing in the area served by the court” (italics added).

 Section 69641 provides: “The board of supervisors of any county, which has a population of not less than 4,000,000 as determined upon the basis of the last preceding census taken under the authority of the Congress or the Legislature, by ordinance may divide such county into not more than nine superior court districts within which one or more sessions of the superior court shall be held.” San Diego County contains fewer than 4 million people.

 Section 69644 provides: “An ordinance creating or changing the boundaries of any district shall not result in any district having an estimated population of less than 250,000.”

 Section 206a provides: “In counties where sessions of the superior court are held in cities other than the county seat, the names for master jury lists and qualified jury lists to serve in said cities may be selected from the supervisorial district in which said city is located and, if the judges of the court determine that it is necessary or advisable, from a supervisorial district adjacent to the supervisorial district in which said city is located.”