Hernandez v. Municipal Court

• Decision Date: 31 October 1989
• Docket Number: No. S001133,S001133
• Citation: 49 Cal.3d 713,263 Cal.Rptr. 513,781 P.2d 547
• Court: California Supreme Court
• Parties: , 781 P.2d 547, 58 USLW 2342 Daniel HERNANDEZ, Petitioner, v. The MUNICIPAL COURT FOR the LOS ANGELES JUDICIAL DISTRICT OF LOS ANGELES COUNTY, Respondent; The PEOPLE, Real Party in Interest.

Page 513

263 Cal.Rptr. 513

49 Cal.3d 713, 781 P.2d 547, 58 USLW 2342

Daniel HERNANDEZ, Petitioner, v. The MUNICIPAL COURT FOR the LOS ANGELES JUDICIAL DISTRICT OF LOS ANGELES COUNTY, Respondent;

The PEOPLE, Real Party in Interest.

No. S001133.

Supreme Court of California,

In Bank.

Oct. 31, 1989.

Rehearing Denied Jan. 18, 1990.

[781 P.2d 548] Wilbur F. Littlefield, Public Defender, Laurence M. Sarnoff, Deborah Christian and Albert J. Menaster, Deputy Public Defenders, for petitioner

Chase, Rotchford, Drukker & Bogust, John J. Geary, Jr., Los Angeles, and Frederick L. Glasser, Costa Mesa, for respondent.

Ira Reiner, Dist. Atty., Los Angeles, Harry B. Sondheim and George M. Palmer, Deputy Dist. Attys., as amici curiae on behalf of respondent.

James K. Hahn, City Atty., William N. Sterling, Susan S. Dwyer and Greg Wolff, Deputy City Attys., for real party in interest.

PANELLI, Justice.

We granted review to determine whether the practice in the Municipal Court for the Los Angeles Judicial District (MCLAJD) of transferring criminal cases from the Traffic Court Building to a branch courthouse within the same municipal court district violates the provisions of the Sixth Amendment of the United States Constitution that a jury be drawn from the locality, or vicinage, of the crime. ¹ Specifically, we must decide what constitutes the geographical boundaries of the vicinage for a case arising in the MCLAJD. As we shall explain, we conclude that in California the boundaries of the vicinage are coterminous with the boundaries of the county.

Hernandez urges a restrictive definition of the vicinage as the geographical boundaries of the census tract where the alleged offense occurred. The People argue that People v. Jones (1973) 9 Cal.3d 546, 108 Cal.Rptr. 345, 510 P.2d 705 mandates a broader definition of vicinage that encompasses the entire judicial district where the crime took place.

We conclude that the MCLAJD practice of transferring cases from the Traffic Court Building to a branch courthouse within the same district does not violate the Sixth Amendment vicinage right. However,,

[781 P.2d 549] our conclusion is not based on the definition of vicinage as the judicial district in which the crime was committed, as set forth in Jones, supra, 9 Cal.3d 546, 108 Cal.Rptr. 345, 510 P.2d 705 and [49 Cal.3d 717] proffered by the People. As we will demonstrate, nothing in the state or federal Constitutions supports the restrictive definition of vicinage prescribed by Jones--the judicial district in which the crime occurs. The Jones majority's narrow definition of the vicinage stands virtually alone among federal and other state decisions. Accordingly, following our reexamination of Jones, we hold that vicinage is defined as the county in which the crime was committed.

I. FACTS AND PROCEDURAL HISTORY

The underlying complaint charging Hernandez with drunk driving and driving without a license was filed in 1985 at the central traffic courthouse in the civic center area of downtown Los Angeles. The alleged offense occurred about eight miles south of that courthouse in the Watts area.

Hernandez pled not guilty. His trial was repeatedly continued. On May 19, 1986, the last day on which the case could be brought to trial before becoming subject to mandatory dismissal pursuant to the speedy trial provisions of Penal Code section 1382, subdivision (c), the case was sent for trial to division 134, the San Fernando branch courthouse of the MCLAJD.

After empanelment of the jury, the trial court heard argument on defendant's vicinage motion. Hernandez challenged the jury draw on the ground it violated his Sixth Amendment right to have jurors selected from the area where the crime was committed. He argued that the statutory provision which specified that a prospective juror could not be required to travel more than 20 miles from his or her residence effectively excluded from his trial all jurors residing in the census tract where the crime was committed. ²

Hernandez called Juanita Blankenship, assistant director of the juror services division for Los Angeles County. Blankenship testified that there was a "low" to "almost a zero" probability that a juror from the civic center area, which is 25 miles from the San Fernando courthouse, would serve on a San Fernando jury, because the computer assignment of jurors took into account the right of jurors under section 203 to refuse to serve more than 20 miles from their homes. ³

Blankenship stated that the probability of drawing a prospective juror from the area surrounding the actual scene of the alleged crime is further reduced because the scene of the alleged crime is south of the civic center. An examination of impanelment lists for the San Fernando courthouse for a four-week period, including two weeks before defendant's scheduled trial and the two weeks after, indicated that, during that time, no persons had been summoned to San Fernando from the area where the alleged offenses occurred.

Blankenship testified that there is an area of overlap between the 20-mile radii used by the San Fernando court and that used by the civic center courts, but the overlapping area does not include the location of the alleged crimes.

The trial court denied the vicinage motion, stating that the vicinage provision of the Sixth Amendment is satisfied when jurors are selected within the judicial district in which the alleged crime was committed. ⁴

Following the court's ruling, Hernandez filed a motion to continue the trial date. The court granted the motion and dismissed the jury. Hernandez sought a writ of mandate in the superior court. On summary denial in that court, Hernandez petitioned for writ of mandate in the Court of Appeal. (§ 904.) Concluding that the dismissal of the jury panel rendered the petition moot, the Court of Appeal dismissed the petition without prejudice. We granted review and transferred the case to the Court of Appeal with directions to issue an alternative writ.

After hearing, the Court of Appeal held that, because jurors from the area of the crime were effectively excluded from service on juries in San Fernando as a result of former section 203 and the jury selection process in Los Angeles County, the transfer of Hernandez's case to San Fernando for trial deprived him of his Sixth Amendment right to a jury drawn from a panel that includes jurors residing in the vicinage, defined by the Court of Appeal as the "scene or area of the crime for which defendant is to be tried."

II. DISCUSSION

The People contend that Hernandez's vicinage right was not violated because his jury panel was summoned from within the judicial district encompassing the scene of the crime as mandated by Jones, supra, 9 Cal.3d 546, 108 Cal.Rptr. 345, 510 P.2d 705. ⁵ We agree that Hernandez was not denied a jury of the vicinage. However, our conclusion is premised upon a definition of vicinage as encompassing the boundaries of Los Angeles County wherein Hernandez allegedly committed the charged offenses, rather than the boundaries of the judicial district surrounding the scene of the crime. In so holding, we overrule Jones, supra, to the extent it is inconsistent with our opinion in this case. As we explain, our decision finds support in the California and the federal Constitutions as well as in the historical development of the vicinage requirement. Furthermore, our conclusion is in accord with decisions of federal courts as well as courts of other states addressing the vicinage issue.

A. Historical Development of the Vicinage Requirement.

The vicinage requirement is derived from English common law and American colonial history. Early English judicial practice required The concept of trial by the jury of the vicinage was not brought to the American colonies in any absolute form. (Zicarelli v. Gray (3d Cir.1976) 543 F.2d 466, 475.) The practice of drawing petit jurors from the vicinity of the crime was not uniform within the colonies. (See Vicinage, supra, at p. 814.) However, the principle of trial by a jury of the vicinage gained vitality as a political argument of the American Revolution in response to Parliament's enactment of a series of laws permitting trial in England of crimes of treason committed in the colonies. (Id. at pp. 806-807, 814.) In Williams v. Florida (1970) 399 U.S. 78, 90 S.Ct. 1893, 26 L.Ed.2d 446, the high court reviewed the legislative history behind the passage of the Sixth Amendment. We quote at length from Williams: "[P]ending and after the adoption of the Constitution, fears were expressed that Article III's provision failed to preserve the common-law right to be tried by a 'jury of the vicinage.' That concern, as well as the concern to preserve the right to jury in civil as well as criminal cases, furnished part of the impetus for introducing amendments to the Constitution that ultimately resulted in the jury trial provisions of the Sixth and Seventh Amendments. As introduced by James Madison in the House, the Amendment relating to jury trial in criminal cases would have provided that: 'The trial of all crimes ... shall be by an impartial jury of freeholders of the vicinage, with the requisite of unanimity for conviction, of the right of challenge, and other accustomed requisites....' The Amendment passed the House in substantially this form, but after more than a week of debate in the Senate it returned to the House considerably altered.... As reported in a second letter by Madison on September 23, 1789, the Senate remained opposed to the vicinage requirement, partly because in its view the then-pending judiciary bill--which was debated at the same time as the Amendments--adequately preserved the common-law vicinage feature, making it unnecessary to freeze that requirement into the Constitution. 'The Senate,' wrote Madison: 'are ... inflexible in opposing a definition of the locality of Juries. The vicinage they contend is either too vague or too strict a term;...