People v. Jones

• Citation: 510 P.2d 705,9 Cal.3d 546,108 Cal.Rptr. 345
• Decision Date: 05 June 1973
• Docket Number: Cr. 16563
• Parties: , 510 P.2d 705 The PEOPLE, Plaintiff and Respondent, v. Leon Dwight JONES, Defendant and Appellant.
• Court: United States State Supreme Court (California)

Page 345

108 Cal.Rptr. 345

9 Cal.3d 546, 510 P.2d 705

The PEOPLE, Plaintiff and Respondent, v. Leon Dwight JONES, Defendant and Appellant.

Cr. 16563.

Supreme Court of California In Bank.

June 5, 1973.

Richard S. Buckley, Public Defender, and Charles A. Gessler, Deputy Public Defender, for defendant and appellant.

Evelle J. Younger, Atty. Gen., Herbert L. Ashby, Chief Asst. Atty. Gen., William E. James, Asst. Atty. Gen., Frederick R. Millar, Jr., and Robert F. Katz, Deputy Attys. Gen., for plaintiff and respondent.

SULLIVAN, Justice.

Defendant Leon Dwight Jones was found guilty by a jury of three counts of selling marijuana (Health & Saf.Code, § 11531) and sentenced to state prison for the term prescribed by law. Defendant appeals contending that the systematic exclusion from the jury of all residents of the district where the crime was committed violated his right under the Sixth and Fourteenth Amendments to the United States Constitution to a trial 'by an impartial jury of the State and district wherein the crime shall have been committed' and thereby invalidated his conviction.

The pertinent facts, as stipulated to by the parties, are as follows: Defendant was a resident of the 77th Street Los Angeles Police Department Precinct (77th Street Precinct). All of the crimes with which he was charged occurred within that precinct. Pursuant to Los Angeles County Ordinance No. 9743, effective March 21, 1969, the 77th Street Precinct had been removed from the Southwest Superior Court District (Southwest District) and included within the Central Superior Court district (Central District) of Los Angeles County. On May 26, 1970, the presiding judge of the Los Angeles Superior Court ordered that all crimes committed in the 77th Street Precinct be tried in the Southwest District instead of the Central District 'because there were not enough judges or courtrooms downtown to handle the volume of work, and it was contemplated that the 77th Street cases would be tried in the Southwest District until the new Criminal Courts Building was completed in downtown Los Angeles in the Fall of 1972.'

During this period all jurors who sat on cases in the courthouse in Torrance in the Southwest District were drawn from the geographical area known as the Southwest District. Jurors who resided in the 77th Street Precinct in the Central District were not drawn for jury service in the Southwest District, but were drawn to serve exclusively in the Central District. However, the Jury Commissioner of Los Angeles County indicated that it would be possible to select and transport residents of the 77th Street Precinct to the Southwest District to serve as jurors.

The 1970 census figures show the following pertinent population statistics: the 77th Street Precinct had a population of approximately 240,000 of which 73 percent were Negro; the Southwest District had a population of approximately 700,000 of which 7 percent were Negro; the population of the Central District was 31 percent Negro; the combined population of the Southwest District and the 77th Street Precinct would be 23 percent Negro.

Pursuant to the May 26, 1970 order, defendant's case was set for trial in department 'F' of the Southwest District. Defendant moved to transfer the trial to the Central District on the ground that the jurors from the area where the alleged crime (for convenience we refer to defendant's offenses in the singular) occurred were included within the Central District jury panel, but excluded from the jury panel of the Southwest District. The motion was denied. Following an unsuccessful attempt to secure a writ of prohibition from the appellate courts, defendant made a motion challenging the jury panel on the same grounds and urging inclusion in the jury panel of a proportional number of jurors residing in the district where the alleged crime occurred. The motion was heard and denied in department 'A' of the Southwest District. Defendant was then tried and convicted in department 'F' of the Southwest District by a jury drawn from a panel which systematically excluded potential jurors who resided in the Central District. This appeal followed.

The Sixth Amendment to the United States Constitution provides in pertinent part: 'In all criminal prosecutions, the accused shall enjoy 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 . . ..' Invoking his right to a jury under this amendment, defendant argues that it is an essential feature of such a jury that it be drawn from the 'district wherein the crime shall have been committed.'

The United States Supreme Court held in Duncan v. Louisiana (1968), 391 U.S. 145, 149, 88 S.Ct. 1444, 1447, 20 L.Ed.2d 491 that 'the Fourteenth Amendment guarantees a right of jury trial in all criminal cases which--were they to be tried in a federal court--would come within the Sixth Amendmen(t).' (Fn. omitted.) In Williams v. Florida (1970), 399 U.S. 78, 90 S.Ct. 1893, 26 L.Ed.2d 446, the high court determined that not all 'features of the jury system, as it existed at common law, were preserved in the Constitution' (Id. at p. 99, 90 S.Ct. at p. 1905), but only essential features were preserved in the Sixth Amendment. The court determines those features which are indispensable components of a jury under the Sixth Amendment by examining the 'function that the particular feature performs and its relation to the purposes of the jury trial.' (Id. at pp. 99--100, 90 S.Ct. at p. 1905.)

More recently in Peters v. Kiff (1972) 407 U.S. 493, 92 S.Ct. 2163, 33 L.Ed.2d 83, the Supreme Court said: 'In Williams v. Florida, 399 U.S. 78, 90 S.Ct. 1893, 26 L.Ed.2d 446 (1970), we sought to delineate some of the essential features of the jury that is guaranteed, in certain circumstances, by the Sixth Amendment. We concluded that it comprehends, inter alia, 'a fair possibility for obtaining a representative cross-section of the community.' 399 U.S., at 100, 90 S.Ct., at 1906.' (Id. at p. 500, 92 S.Ct. at p. 2167, fn. omitted.) The court took pains to explain the significance of a representative jury: 'The principle of the representative jury was first articulated by this Court as a requirement of equal protection, in cases vindicating the right of a Negro defendant to challenge the systematic exclusion of Negroes from his grand and petit jury. E.g., Smith v. Texas, 311 U.S. 128, 130, 61 S.Ct. 164, 85 L.Ed. 84 (1940). Subsequently, in the exercise of its supervisory power over federal courts, this Court extended the principle, to permit any defendant to challenge the arbitrary exclusion from jury service of his own or any other class. E.g., Glasser v. United States, 315 U.S. 60, 83--87, 62 S.Ct. 457, 470--473, 86 L.Ed. 680 (1942); Thiel v. Southern Pacific Co., 328 U.S. 217, 220, 66 S.Ct. 984, 985, 90 L.Ed. 1181 (1946); Ballard v. United States, 329 U.S. 187, 67 S.Ct. 261, 91 L.Ed. 181 (1946). Finally it emerged as an aspect of the constitutional right to jury trial in Williams v. Florida, 399 U.S. 78 100, 90 S.Ct. 1803, 1905, 26 L.Ed.2d 446 (1970).' (407 U.S. at p. 500, fn. 9, 92 S.Ct. at p. 2167.)

In Williams the Supreme Court detailed the legislative history behind the passage of the Sixth Amendment and emphasized that the common law right to be tried by a 'jury of the vicinage,' unlike the common law right to a jury of 12 members, was an essential feature of jury trial, which was explicitly preserved, though redefined, by the Sixth Amendment. It observed: 'Indeed, pending 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.' ¹ (Fn. omitted.) 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 . . ..' (Fn. omitted.) 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. (Fn. omitted.) . . . 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-impending 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; too vague if depending on limits to be fixed by the pleasure of the law, too strict if limited to the county . . ..' The version that finally emerged from the Committee was the version that ultimately became the Sixth Amendment . . .. Gone were the provisions spelling out such common-law features of the jury as 'unanimity,' or 'the accustomed requisites.' And the 'vicinage' requirement itself had been replaced by wording that reflected a compromise between broad and narrow definitions of that term, and that left Congress the power to determine the actual size of the 'vicinage' by its creation of judicial districts. (Fn. omitted.)' (Williams v. Florida, Supra, 399 U.S. at pp. 93--96, 90 S.Ct. at p. 1903.)

It thus seems abundantly clear that the 'vicinage' requirement as stated in the Sixth Amendment, namely trial by a jury of...