Adams v. Superior Court

• Decision Date: 13 September 1972
• Citation: 104 Cal.Rptr. 144,27 Cal.App.3d 719
• Court: California Court of Appeals Court of Appeals
• Parties: Rickey Relaine ADAMS, Petitioner, v. SUPERIOR COURT of the State of California FOR the COUNTY OF LOS ANGELES, Respondent. PEOPLE of the State of California, etc., Real Party in Interest. Civ. 40086.

Page 144

104 Cal.Rptr. 144

27 Cal.App.3d 719

Rickey Relaine ADAMS, Petitioner, v. SUPERIOR COURT of the State of California FOR the COUNTY OF LOS ANGELES, Respondent PEOPLE of the State of California, etc., Real Party in Interest.

Civ. 40086.

Court of Appeal, Second District, Division 3, California.

Sept. 13, 1972.

As Modified on Denial of Rehearing Oct. 10, 1972.

Further Modified Oct. 11, 1972.

Hearing Denied Nov. 9, 1972.

Richard S. Buckley, Public Defender of Los Angeles County, and James L. McCormick, Gerald L. Chaleff, Harold E. Shabo and G. Keith Wisot, Deputy Public Defenders, for petitioner.

John D. Maharg, County Counsel, Donald K. Byrne, Div. Chief, Los Angeles and Harold Vites, Deputy County Counsel, for respondent.

Joseph P. Busch, Dist. Atty. of Los Angeles County, Harry Wood, Head, Appellate Div., Los Angeles, and Arnold T. Guminski, Ronald Ross and Harry B. Sondheim, Deputy Dist. Attys., for real party in interest.

FORD, Presiding Justice.

This is a proceeding in mandamus to compel the superior court to vacate its order denying petitioner's motion to quash the petit jury panel, ¹ by which motion he challenged the manner in which jurors are selected for the Central District of the court, and to make an order granting that motion.

The criminal case in which the motion was made is pending in the Central District, one of the nine districts of the Superior Court of Los Angeles County. By a consolidated information containing 17 counts, petitioner is accused of the commission of various felonies. The crimes with which he is charged occurred within the boundaries of the Central District, of which petitioner, a Negro, is a resident. Jurors selected for the Central District are drawn from the list of names of registered voters on a county-wide basis. For each of the other eight judicial districts the selection of jurors is made by resort to the list of registered voters living in the particular district. No attack is made upon the formula by which the names of prospective jurors are obtained by means of a computer system. The core of petitioner's challenge is that because of the resort to a county-wide draw for the Central District, as contrasted with a district-wide draw for the other districts, he is subjected to a denial of due process and of equal protection of the law. The pertinent circumstances in the light of which the validity of that challenge must be determined will be set forth.

The place of trial of a person charged with the commission of a felony is normally the county in which the crime is alleged to have been committed. ² Historically, the courthouse has been located at the county seat. While the county seat of Los Angeles County is the City of Los Angeles, the gradual and substantial increase in population ³ and the unusually large geographical area of the county has resulted in the establishment of branch courts as a means of maintaining efficient judicial administration. That growth has culminated in the establishment of eight judicial districts, supplementing that portion of the court system retained at the county seat and which is geographically within the area presently designated as the Central District. Thus, there are now nine geographical areas constituting specifically named districts.

The designation and functions of the various districts are set forth in the Rules of the Superior Court of Los Angeles County. With respect to criminal cases, pertinent sections of rule 2 will be noted. Section 1 contains the provision that sessions of the court shall be held in the designated nine districts. In section 2 it is stated that every indictment by the grand jury shall be filed in the Central District. Section 3 is concerned with the subject of optional filing and it is therein provided that a criminal action or proceeding, other than as specified in section 2, may be filed in the Central District and, further, that criminal actions may be filed in a district in which 'one of the offenses was committed' or in which 'the preliminary hearing was held.' Section 5 relates to the transfer of a case in the event of a congested calendar and is as follows: 'Whenever, in the opinion of the Presiding Judge, the calendar in any district including the Central District, has become so congested as to jeopardize the right of a party to a speedy trial or to materially interfere with the proper handling of the judicial business in the district, he may order the transfer of one or more cases pending in that district to another district for trial or may order, for a limited period, that cases which may be filed in that district shall be filed in a different district.' The subjects of section 6 are the convenience of witnesses and the promotion of justice, a portion relevant with respect to criminal cases being as follows: 'After prior approval by the transferee judge and the judge presiding in the Criminal Master Calendar Department in the Central District, a criminal action may be transferred from one district to another.'

Rule 3--A of the Rules of the Superior Court of Los Angeles County is as follows: 'All departments in the central district designated by the Presiding Judge to hear criminal cases, and all departments in any other district designated by the Supervising Judge of that district to hear criminal cases, shall be designated as the Criminal Division of the Los Angeles Superior Court.'

Turning to the relevant statutory provisions as to the selection of jurors in the County of Los Angeles, it is to be noted that section 206 of the Code of Civil Procedure as amended in 1923 (Stats.1923, ch. 195, p. 437, § 2) was as follows: 'The list of jurors, to be made in counties of the first class, shall contain the number of persons which shall have been designated by the court in its order. The names for such lists shall be selected from the different wards or townships of the respective counties in proportion to the number of inhabitants therein, as nearly as the same can be estimated by the persons making said lists; and said lists shall be kept separate and distinct, one from the other; provided, further, that in counties of the first class, where sessions of the superior court are held in cities therein, other than the county seat, the names for such lists to serve in said city shall all be selected from the townships in which said city is located; and provided, further, that no names from said township shall be selected to serve as trial jurors for any other part of the county.'

By amendment of section 206 in 1951 (Stats.1951, ch. 1495, p. 3477, § 3) reference was made to judicial districts and districts instead of townships. In 1959 the section was reworded without substantive change (Stats.1959, ch. 501, p. 2456, § 10). Section 206 was not thereafter amended until 1963 (Stats.1963, ch. 1412, p. 2949, § 1) when the words 'other than in the county seat' were added as the last words of the section. Accordingly, section 206 of the Code of Civil Procedure is presently as follows: 'The list of trial jurors made in a county of the first class (Los Angeles County) shall contain the number of persons which has been designated by the court in its order. The names for the trial jury list shall be selected from the different wards or judicial districts of the respective counties in proportion to the number of inhabitants therein, as nearly as the same can be estimated by the persons making the lists. The trial jury list shall be kept separate and distinct from the grand jury list. In a county of the first class (Los Angeles County), where sessions of the superior court are held in cities other than the county seat, the names for such list to serve in the city shall all be selected from the district in which the city is located and no names from such district shall be selected to serve as trial jurors for any other part of the county, other than in the county seat.'

At the hearing in this case of the defendant's challenge of the method of selecting jurors for the Central District, the Jury Commissioner of the Los Angeles County Superior Court testified that the jurors for the Central District are drawn from the entire county but that jurors for any other district are drawn solely from the geographical area of that district. There was a period of time of approximately a year and a half when, pursuant to the order of December 23, 1969, of the then presiding judge, the jurors for the Central District were drawn only from that district. That order was terminated by the order of July 6, 1971, signed by an acting presiding judge. When the witness first entered the county service in 1948, the jurors for the Central District were being drawn on a county-wide basis and that practice has continued except for the period of time during which the order of December 23, 1969, was effective. No inquiry is made by the Jury Commissioner as to the race of any prospective juror and his office keeps no statistics with respect to the matter of race.

The Assistant Jury Commissioner of the Los Angeles County Superior Court testified that he was the person primarily in charge of the maintenance of statistics with respect to the process of selection of jurors. A portion of his testimony was as follows: 'Q. The Central District figures are lower, the percentage of people actually certified are lower than in any other district? A. Yes. The percentage of return, is less in the Central District. Q. What do you mean by return? A. The percent qualified as opposed to the number mailed out. Number of questionnaires mailed out.' The witness' testimony and the statistics furnished by him supported the conclusion that the lesser proportion of residents of the Central District certified for jury duty was due to the factors of lack of response to letters sent to registered voters by means of the computer system and the number of responding persons who were excused from jury service. The witness had been with the office...