O'Hare v. Superior Court (People)
| Decision Date | 25 March 1986 |
| Citation | 179 Cal.App.3d 46,224 Cal.Rptr. 765 |
| Court | California Court of Appeals Court of Appeals |
| Parties | Previously published at 179 Cal.App.3d 46 179 Cal.App.3d 46 Eddie O'HARE, Petitioner, v. SUPERIOR COURT, etc., County of San Diego, Respondent; The PEOPLE, Real Party in Interest. D003356. |
Robert F. Gusky, for petitioner.
Lloyd M. Harmon, Jr., Co. Counsel, Daniel J. Wallace, Chief Deputy Co. Counsel, and Bruce W. Beach, Deputy Co. Counsel, for respondent.
Edwin L. Miller, Jr., Dist. Atty., Peter C. Lehman, Sally J. Penso, and Paul M. Morley, Deputy Dist. Attys., for real party interest.
John K. Van de Kamp, Atty. Gen., John W. Carney, and Tim J. Nader, Deputy Attys. Gen. as Amicus Curiae on behalf of real party in interest.
Jack R. Campbell and Geraldine S. Russell as amicus curiae.
This case presents the important issue whether the North County Branch of the San Diego Superior Court violates the constitutional rights of criminal defendants charged with felonies when it limits selection of jurors to a venire taken from the North County Municipal Court Judicial District rather than one taken from San Diego County as a whole.
Eddie O'Hare, charged by information with kidnapping (Pen.Code, § 207), assault by means of force likely to produce great bodily injury (Pen.Code, § 245, subd. (a)(1)), infliction of cruel corporal punishment of a child (Pen.Code, § 273d, willful cruelty to a child (Pen.Code, § 273a, subd. (2)), and false representation of identity to a police officer (Pen.Code, § 148.9), seeks to compel transfer of his felony trial from the North County Branch to the San Diego Downtown Branch contending the jury venire in North County contains a significantly lower percentage of jury-eligible black persons than does the venire for the Downtown Branch. 1 He relies primarily on the Sixth Amendment guarantee 2 of a jury drawn from a representative cross section of the community, as interpreted by this court's earlier decision in Johnson v. Superior Court (1984) 163 Cal.App.3d 85, 209 Cal.Rptr. 425. The holding in Johnson, however, is not nearly so broad as O'Hare suggests. After reviewing the extensive federal and significant California precedent in this area, as well as considering the historical roots of the Sixth Amendment, we conclude there is no constitutional impediment to designation of the North County Municipal Court Judicial District as the "community" from which jurors are to be drawn for sessions of the North County Branch of the San Diego Superior Court. We also reject O'Hare's contention that because the North County Branch has not been legislatively designated as a "judicial district," there is insufficient legislative authorization for the use of a venire drawn from any area less than the entire County of San Diego.
Since 1970, the Legislature has required that the San Diego County Superior Court hold daily sessions in Vista, a city in northern San Diego County. (Gov. Code, § 69595.5.) The North County Branch of the San Diego Superior Court sitting in Vista was created by local court venue rules to implement this legislative requirement. Those rules divide the County roughly in half and, with certain exceptions, 3 require that actions arising in North County be originally filed in the North County Branch. (Super.Ct.Rules, Div. III, § 1, rule 1.3.)
Before the decision in Johnson v. Superior Court, supra, 163 Cal.App.3d 85, 209 Cal.Rptr. 425, North County jurors were drawn from the master list for the Fifth Supervisorial District. In response to Johnson, the system was modified in March 1985 so that all jurors summoned for service in both the North County Branch of the Superior Court and the Municipal Court of the North County Judicial District are now drawn solely from the North County Judicial District. 4 The North County Judicial District is larger than the Fifth Supervisorial District, but the increase in size did not change the percentage of jury-eligible black persons in the jury panel. Although the North County jury panel fairly reflects the jury-eligible black community as it exists in North County, it does not reflect the percentage of black persons in San Diego County as a whole.
O'Hare was arraigned on January 8, 1985, in the North County Branch and entered a plea of not guilty. In March, after initiation of the new jury selection procedure, O'Hare filed a petition for writ of mandate with this court asking to have his case transferred to the Downtown Branch of the Superior Court. The petition was denied without prejudice on grounds O'Hare had made no showing the venire would not be reflective of the community. (D002866, order dated Mar. 15, 1985.) O'Hare then filed a motion in the superior court to transfer venue to the Downtown Branch. The motion was denied with the following findings:
O'Hare then filed a second petition for writ of mandate which was denied on grounds there was no abuse of discretion. The California Supreme Court granted O'Hare's petition for review of the denial of his petition for writ of mandate. On transfer of the matter, we issued an alternative writ.
O'Hare's fundamental contention is that he is constitutionally entitled to a jury drawn from the entire County of San Diego rather than some construct of a northern county subdivision.
The Sixth Amendment right to an "impartial jury," 5 which undergirds most of the constitutional law applicable to jury selection procedures, has been interpreted to entitle a criminal defendant to a jury "selected from a fair cross section of the community." (Duren v. Missouri (1979) 439 U.S. 357, 359, 99 S.Ct. 664, 666, 58 L.Ed.2d 579; see also Thiel v. Southern Pac. Co. (1946) 328 U.S. 217, 220, 66 S.Ct. 984, 985, 90 L.Ed. 1181; Brown v. Allen (1953) 344 U.S. 443, 474, 73 S.Ct. 397, 416, 97 L.Ed. 469; Williams v. Florida (1970) 399 U.S. 78, 100, 90 S.Ct. 1893, 1905, 26 L.Ed.2d 446; Taylor v. Louisiana (1975) 419 U.S. 522, 527, 95 S.Ct. 692, 696, 42 L.Ed.2d 690.) Virtually all the decisions in this area focus on the use of the jury selection process to exclude cognizable groups within that community, such as women, racial minorities or wage earners. (See, e.g., Duren, supra [women]; Taylor, supra [women]; Alexander v. Louisiana (1972) 405 U.S. 625, 92 S.Ct. 1221, 31 L.Ed.2d 536 [blacks]; Thiel, supra [wage earners]; Smith v. State of Texas (1940) 311 U.S. 128, 61 S.Ct. 164, 85 L.Ed. 84 [blacks].) Less frequently addressed is the question of what constitutes the "relevant community" from which a fair cross section must be drawn to comprise the venire. 6
It is important to recognize at the outset that this issue of "community" is related to but nonetheless distinct from questions of "vicinage." As interpreted by our Supreme Court in People v. Jones (1973) 9 Cal.3d 546, 551, 108 Cal.Rptr. 345, 510 P.2d 705, the Sixth Amendment includes the requirement that the defendant be tried by a jury drawn from an area which includes the location of the crime, or, in other words, "a jury of the vicinage." 7 (See also Williams v. Florida, supra, 399 U.S. at pp. 93-96, 90 S.Ct. at pp. 1902-03.) Here, there is no question but that O'Hare's jury would be drawn from an area which includes the location of the crime.
O'Hare suggests, however, that the Sixth Amendment's cross-sectional requirement implies an additional limitation on the government's power to define the "community" against which the demographics of the venire are measured. In other words, O'Hare's argument is not a procedural one, questioning the means by which the venire was selected from an agreed-upon community. (Compare, e.g., Duren v. Missouri, supra, 439 U.S. 357, 99 S.Ct. 664, 58 L.Ed.2d 579 []; People v. Harris (1984) 36 Cal.3d 36, 201 Cal.Rptr. 782, 679 P.2d 433 [].) Instead, he focuses on the notion of "community" itself, asserting that in addition to a means-oriented limitation, the Sixth Amendment also imposes a substantive requirement as to the size of the community which may serve as the source of the venire. Thus, according to O'Hare, the government cannot create artifically small judicial districts which distort the demographics of the larger community and that, at least in the case of San Diego County, the relevant "community" must be deemed to include the entire county.
Unfortunately for O'Hare, the historical evidence which exists does not support a conclusion that the Sixth Amendment was designed to serve as a substantive limitation on government's power to define the community from which the jury venire is drawn. In Williams v. Florida, supra, 399 U.S. 78, 90 S.Ct. 1893, 26 L.Ed.2d 446, the Supreme Court extensively reviewed the developments which led to the adoption of the Sixth Amendment in 1789. The common law "vicinage" concept, which by...
To continue reading
Request your trial
-
O'Hare v. Superior Court of San Diego County (People)
...OF SAN DIEGO, Respondent; PEOPLE, Real Party in Interest. Supreme Court of California, In Bank. June 24, 1986. Prior Report: Cal.App., 224 Cal.Rptr. 765. Petition for review BIRD, C.J., and REYNOSO, BROUSSARD and GRODIN, JJ., concur. ...