People v. Williams

• Decision Date: 01 June 1981
• Docket Number: Cr. 21477
• Citation: 29 Cal.3d 392,628 P.2d 869,174 Cal.Rptr. 317
• Court: California Supreme Court
• Parties: , 628 P.2d 869 The PEOPLE, Plaintiff and Respondent, v. Jimmie Ray WILLIAMS, Defendant and Appellant.

Page 317

174 Cal.Rptr. 317

29 Cal.3d 392, 628 P.2d 869

The PEOPLE, Plaintiff and Respondent, v. Jimmie Ray WILLIAMS, Defendant and Appellant.

Cr. 21477.

Supreme Court of California, In Bank.

June 1, 1981.

Rehearing Denied July 3, 1981.

Quin Denvir, State Public Defender, under appointment by the Court of Appeal, and Dennis P. Riordan, Deputy State Public Defender, for defendant and appellant.

Ephraim Margolin, San Francisco, John M. Sink, Santa Barbara, Thomas M. Meyer, Berkeley, and Emily DeFalla as amici curiae on behalf of defendant and appellant.

George Deukmejian, Atty. Gen., Robert H. Philibosian, Chief Asst. Atty. Gen., Edward P. O'Brien, Asst. Atty. Gen., W. Eric Collins and Dane R. Gillette, Deputy Attys. Gen., for plaintiff and respondent.

MOSK, Justice.

This defendant challenges the long-standing rule that prohibits voir dire from being conducted as a means to uncover bases for peremptory challenges. (People v. Edwards (1912) 163 Cal. 752, 753, 127 P. 58.) Like a moss-covered oak, the doctrine has seemed sturdy because of its venerable age, but we have only to examine its shallow roots and hollow substance to realize that it is precariously poised, ready to topple at the first challenging blow.

I

In the early morning hours of February 21, 1978, defendant Williams fatally shot a drinking companion, Travis King. Earlier in the evening, the two men had been arrested after a fight on a freeway ramp. Both men appeared intoxicated. After King was released from jail, he went to defendant's house to retrieve his car. King told defendant's son he wanted to talk to defendant; he followed the son to the bedroom in which defendant had been sleeping with his one-year-old grandson. When defendant told his son that he was asleep and did not desire to talk to anyone, King pounded on the door, shouted obscenities, and demanded that defendant come out to fight. The door opened, a struggle ensued, and King was shot.

Defendant was charged with murder. The central issue at trial was whether in shooting King he had acted reasonably in defense of himself, his grandson, and his home. The jury acquitted him of murder but found him guilty of voluntary manslaughter. Defendant was placed on three years' probation on condition that he serve five months in county jail.

At the beginning of voir dire the court inquired of the veniremen as a group whether they would follow the court's instructions on the law regardless of their personal opinions about what the law is or should be. The prospective jurors responded en masse that they could do so. The court also asked whether they had any quarrel with the propositions that the People must prove defendant's guilt beyond a reasonable doubt and that defendant is presumed innocent. They responded that they did not.

Thereafter, counsel were permitted to question the veniremen individually (Pen.Code, § 1078). Defense counsel attempted to ask one prospective juror whether, if she were instructed to apply a "reasonable man" standard of conduct, she could conceive of a "hypothetical, reasonable and prudent man." The prosecution's objection was sustained. The court also sustained an objection to counsel's request that a juror give him "a brief idea of your feeling about the right of a person to defend himself in his own home."

After the first day of voir dire, counsel sought permission to ask the veniremen whether they would willingly follow an instruction to the effect that a person has a right to resist an aggressor by using necessary force and has no duty to retreat. The court denied the request. Counsel was permitted, however, to ask members of the panel whether they would follow self-defense instructions even if they disagreed with the law. One venireman candidly replied that he could not "truthfully answer" and did not "know for sure" whether he could follow instructions with which he disagreed. Another, understandably finding it difficult to answer hypothetically without first being informed of the probable content of the instructions, asked for an example. Despite these expressions of uncertainty, the court stood by its original ruling.

II

The sole issue on appeal is whether defense counsel should have been allowed to ask the excluded questions, either because they may have led to challenges for cause and were therefore properly within the scope of the existing voir dire standard, or because they could have assisted counsel in the intelligent exercise of peremptory challenges and should therefore have been allowed despite California precedent to the contrary.

We hold that the existing standard is unnecessarily restrictive and arbitrarily applied, and adopt the rule prevailing in most other jurisdictions that counsel may make reasonable inquiries to assist in the intelligent exercise of peremptory challenges. We further hold that a question about a prospective juror's willingness to apply a specific doctrine of law if so instructed should be permitted if the doctrine is likely to be applied at trial; this, as will be discussed infra, is subject to reasonable limitations and the discretion of the trial judge.

The existing rule in California comes to us from a 1912 case, People v. Edwards, supra, 163 Cal. 752, 753, 127 P. 58 (see also People v. Plyler (1899) 126 Cal. 379, 381, 58 P. 904; People v. Brittan (1897) 118 Cal. 409, 412, 50 P. 664; People v. Hamilton (1882) 62 Cal. 377, 382; People v. Trask (1907) 7 Cal.App. 103, 105, 93 P. 891), in which the court purported to justify its holding with the following observation: "there is an increasing tendency to prolong the proceedings inordinately by allowing counsel on either side to indulge in tedious examination of jurors apparently with no definite purpose or object in view, but with the hope of eliciting something indicating the advisability of a peremptory challenge, and ... the supposed privilege of doing this has been greatly abused." Therefore, in an attempt to streamline the voir dire process, the court foreclosed counsel from asking questions immaterial to challenges for cause.

In so doing, the court created a standard arbitrary and difficult to apply, erratic in achievement of its desired end, and insensitive to the constitutional mandate that the defendant be tried before a fair and impartial jury.

Although the Edwards rule was no doubt intended to substantially restrict the scope of voir dire, and in application has often had that effect, if it were applied with strict logic it would impose no significant limitation on "tedious examination." A venireman may be excused for cause of it is shown that he harbors actual bias "in reference to the case, or to either of the parties, which will prevent him from acting with entire impartiality" (italics added; Pen.Code, § 1073), or if he possesses one of several characteristics from which bias is implied as a matter of law. ¹ Because counsel can know if a question will expose bias only by awaiting the answer, and because the judge must rule on the propriety of the question before the answer is given, the only limitation on the admissibility of a particular question under the Edwards rule is the judge's ability or willingness to conceive of a possible response that would reveal legally cognizable bias. Furthermore, Edwards imposed no limit on the form of the questioning; as long as the questions were material to a challenge for cause, they could be as endlessly repetitive or confusing as counsel cared to make them, subject only to the limits of the court's patience.

Confronted with an unwieldy standard, courts necessarily developed their own limitations. The results have been understandably erratic.

Some decisions have been based on an ad hoc balancing test, comparing the likelihood that a particular question would ultimately lead to a challenge for cause with the probability that it would result in a peremptory challenge. If the latter was the more predictable result, then the question was excluded even though strict adherence to the Edwards standard would allow it. Thus in People v. Estorga (1928) 206 Cal. 81, 273 P. 575, a rape case, the trial court refused to allow questions concerning the veniremen's marital status, family, or close association with any victim of rape. In affirming, this court held that the questions were "not so much for the purpose of laying the basis of challenges for cause as to pave the way for possible peremptory challenges ...." (Id. at p. 87, 273 P. 575.)

But because of the broad discretion left in the trial courts to apply Edwards literally and therefore liberally, the Legislature perceived as unabated the practice of allowing virtually unrestrained voir dire so long as the remote possibility existed that bias would be uncovered thereby. (People v. Crowe (1973) 8 Cal.3d 815, 822, 106 Cal.Rptr. 369, 506 P.2d 193.) It therefore responded in 1927 by directing trial judges to allow only "reasonable examination of prospective jurors by counsel...." (Pen.Code, § 1078.) It is clear from its face, however, that the statute recognizes the need and safeguards the opportunity to make reasonably thorough inquiry to secure a "fair and impartial jury." (Id.; see also People v. Estorga, supra, 206 Cal. at p. 84, 273 P. 575.) Nonetheless, many courts apparently viewed the statute as further justification for restricting counsel's opportunity to make specific inquiries to uncover latent prejudice.

As a result, both before and after the enactment of the statute, most courts limited voir dire by asking broad questions at the outset about the veniremen's impartiality. Under Edwards, they could then foreclose as unlikely to reveal bias other questions related to particular areas in which bias was in fact likely to be discovered. (See, e. g., People v. Hill (1913) 20 Cal.App. 407, 410-411, 129 P. 475; People v Edenburg (1928) 88 Cal.App. 558, 561-563, 263 P. 857; People v. Casserio (1936) 16 Cal.App.2d 223, 227, 60 P.2d 505.) Voir dire thereby...