People v. Hall

• Decision Date: 12 December 1983
• Docket Number: Cr. 23063
• Parties: , 672 P.2d 854 The PEOPLE, Plaintiff and Respondent, v. Miguel HALL, Defendant and Appellant.
• Court: California Supreme Court

Page 71

197 Cal.Rptr. 71

35 Cal.3d 161, 672 P.2d 854

The PEOPLE, Plaintiff and Respondent, v. Miguel HALL, Defendant and Appellant.

Cr. 23063.

Supreme Court of California,

In Bank.

Dec. 12, 1983.

Theodore Winchester, San Francisco, for defendant and appellant.

Dane R. Gillette, Deputy Atty. Gen., San Francisco, for plaintiff and respondent.

GRODIN, Justice.

Defendant appeals from a judgment of conviction entered on jury verdicts finding him guilty of violating Penal Code sections 245, subdivision (a), and 236. ¹ We reverse, having concluded that the trial court failed to exercise its judgment in determining whether the prosecutor's use of peremptory challenges was for reasons relevant to the case before it or reflected a constitutionally impermissible group bias. (See People v. Wheeler (1978) 22 Cal.3d 258, 148 Cal.Rptr. 890, 583 P.2d 748.)

Defendant, who is black, was charged with assault with intent to commit rape (§ 220), assault by means of force likely to cause great bodily harm (§ 245, subd. (a)), and false imprisonment (§ 236). The complaining witness, who is white, identified defendant as the man who approached her during a party held in a building housing decorators' showrooms, dragged her into a room where he strangled her until she lost consciousness, and fondled her when she came to, eventually releasing her when she agreed to forgive him. A first trial resulted in a mistrial when the lone black on the jury did not join the remainder of the jury in voting for guilty verdicts.

At the retrial, during voir dire of the jury panel, the prosecutor used peremptory challenges to excuse at least four black prospective jurors. After the prosecutor had excused two blacks with his first three peremptory challenges, ² defendant asked that the People be required to make a showing that no systematic exclusion of blacks was underway if any further peremptory challenges were used to exclude black prospective jurors. The court deferred ruling until such challenges might be made.

The People then used their fourth and fifth peremptory challenges to excuse jurors, one or both of whom were black. ³ Defendant again asked that the People be required to make an appropriate showing before the panel of prospective jurors was exhausted. The prosecutor declined, although the court suggested that he put something on the record. Defendant asserted his belief that systematic exclusion of blacks was occurring and once again asked that reasons for the exclusion be put on the record if another black was excused peremptorily. Two black male prospective jurors ⁴ remained in the jury box when this request was made, and the court again deferred ruling, stating that the motion would be taken under submission until the end of the voir dire. The People peremptorily challenged three more jurors before the twelve-person jury was selected. Their eighth, and last, peremptory challenge was exercised to excuse the last black prospective juror. ⁵ Noting that only one black was among the prospective jurors on a new panel that had been brought in, defendant asked the court to vacate the panel, and to inquire into the prosecutor's reasons for excluding the black prospective jurors.

The prosecutor then, in response to the court's request, provided the following explanation: "Miss Cotton, my confidential information indicated she has voted not guilty. I will allow the court to look at my records .... I have another reason why I excused Miss Cotton which I will take in conjunction with Miss Simon. Miss Simon indicated she had a son I believe to be approximately the same age as the Defendant. I believe that the Defendant, at the last trial, I understand at one point he live[d] in Chicago, I can't be sure, I believe he has some contact with Texas either in the military or something like that. Both Miss Cotton and Miss Simon said they were from Texas. That went into my considerations also. Miss Zetar ... I excused her based on a conversation I had with a member of my office who brought her to my attention. As Mr. Goodman indicated to me in a prior case he had with her she did not comport herself as he felt a juror should, based on the evidence that was presented. As far as Mr. Robinson, I was watching Mr. Robinson ... he segregated himself from the other members of the jury. Furthermore, I watched him in the courtroom today. There were light moments during the jury selection, however Mr. Robinson never cracked a smile. I came to my personal feelings based on his reaction in this courtroom that he did not possess the sensitivities necessary to realistically look at the issues and decide the facts in this case because it's a crime involving sexual assault which is a crime of sensitivity. For those reasons I have excused those names."

The trial court declined any inquiry into or examination of the prosecutor's explanation. Stating that "a peremptory challenge is a peremptory challenge, otherwise, it's meaningless," the judge expressed a view that systematic exclusion of a class of potential jurors occurs only when the prosecutor announces an intent to keep all members of that group off the jury. ⁶ In response to defendant's plea that he see the reality of the prosecutor's actions, the judge again explained his belief that systematic exclusion is demonstrated only if the prosecutor expressly states an intent to exclude all members of a class. His comment also reflected a belief that the court may not or need not refuse to accept a prosecutor's explanation even if the explanation appears to be disingenuous. ⁷

The jury was then sworn; defendant was convicted, as noted above, of aggravated assault and false imprisonment; his motion for a new trial, supported in part by his assertion of error in the denial of his jury composition motions, ⁸ was denied, and this appeal followed. Because we conclude that the trial court committed reversible error in failing to determine whether racial motivation underlay the prosecutor's exercise of peremptory challenges to remove blacks from the jury, it is unnecessary to consider defendant's additional arguments that prejudicial error occurred in the denial of discovery, admission of evidence of defendant's prior testimony, and in the court's refusal to give an instruction on the sufficiency of circumstantial evidence.

I.

In People v. Wheeler, supra, 22 Cal.3d 258, 148 Cal.Rptr. 890, 583 P.2d 748, this court faced the task of accommodating the People's statutory right to exercise peremptory challenges ⁹ with a defendant's constitutional right to a jury drawn from a representative cross-section of the community. We concluded that "the use of peremptory challenges to remove prospective jurors on the sole ground of group bias violates the right to trial by a jury drawn from a representative cross-section of the community under article I, section 16 of the California Constitution." (Id., at pp. 276-277, 148 Cal.Rptr. 890, 583 P.2d 748.) And, recognizing that it is the "responsibility of our courts to insure that [the constitutional] guarantee not be reduced to a hollow form of words, but remain a vital and effective safeguard of the liberties of California citizens" (id., at p. 272, 148 Cal.Rptr. 890, 583 P.2d 748), we undertook to establish a procedure for implementing that principle.

We began "with the proposition that in any given instance the presumption must be that a party exercising a peremptory challenge is doing so on a constitutionally permissible ground." (Id., at p. 278, 148 Cal.Rptr. 890, 583 P.2d 748.) The presumption is, however, rebuttable. (Ibid.) "If a party believes his opponent is using his peremptory challenges to strike jurors on the ground of group bias alone, he must raise the point in timely fashion and make a prima facie case of such discrimination to the satisfaction of the court.... If the court finds that a prima facie case has been made, the burden shifts to the other party to show if he can that the peremptory challenges in question were not predicated on group bias alone. The showing need not rise to the level of a challenge for cause. But to sustain his burden of justification, the allegedly offending party must satisfy the court that he exercised such peremptories on grounds that were reasonably relevant to the particular case on trial or its parties or witnesses--i.e., for reasons of specific bias as defined herein. [Fn. omitted.]" (Id., at pp. 280-282, 148 Cal.Rptr. 890, 583 P.2d 748.)

We recognized in Wheeler "that a peremptory challenge may be predicated on a broad spectrum of evidence suggestive of juror partiality. The evidence may range from the obviously serious to the apparently trivial, from the virtually certain to the highly speculative," and that "[r]esponsive to this reality, the law allows removal of a biased juror by a challenge for which no reason 'need be given,' i.e., publicly stated: in many instances the party either cannot establish his reason by normal methods of proof or cannot do so without causing embarrassment to the challenged venireman and resentment among the remaining jurors. [Fn. omitted.]" (Id., at p. 275, 148 Cal.Rptr. 890, 583 P.2d 748.)

Yet it is imperative, if the constitutional guarantee is to have real meaning, that once a prima facie case of group bias appears the allegedly offending party be required to come forward with explanation to the court that demonstrates other bases for the challenges, and that the court satisfy itself that the explanation is genuine. This demands of the trial judge a sincere and reasoned attempt to evaluate the prosecutor's explanation in light of the circumstances of the case as then known, his knowledge of trial techniques, and his observations of the manner in which the prosecutor has examined members of the venire and has exercised challenges for cause or peremptorily, for "we rely on the good judgment of the trial courts to distinguish bona fide reasons for such peremptories from sham excuses...