Williams v. Superior Court of Los Angeles County (People)

• Decision Date: 14 July 1987
• Citation: 238 Cal.Rptr. 488,205 Cal.App.3d 401
• Court: California Court of Appeals Court of Appeals
• Parties: Previously published at 205 Cal.App.3d 401 205 Cal.App.3d 401 Edward WILLIAMS, Petitioner, v. The SUPERIOR COURT OF LOS ANGELES COUNTY, Respondent. The PEOPLE of the State of California, Real Party in Interest. B016942.

Page 488

238 Cal.Rptr. 488

Previously published at 205 Cal.App.3d 401

205 Cal.App.3d 401

Edward WILLIAMS, Petitioner, v. The SUPERIOR COURT OF LOS ANGELES COUNTY, Respondent.

The PEOPLE of the State of California, Real Party in Interest.

B016942.

Court of Appeal, Second District, Division 7, California.

July 14, 1987.

Review Granted Oct. 1, 1987.

Criminal Justice Legal Foundation, Christopher N. Heard, Legal Director, San Jose, John K. Van de Kamp, Atty. Gen., Gary R. Hahn and Shunji Asari, Deputy Attys. Gen., as amici curiae on behalf of real party in interest.

Madelynn Kopple, Santa Monica, for petitioner.

Frank O. Bell, Jr., State Public Defender and Donald L.A. Kerson, Deputy State Public Defender, as amici curiae on behalf of petitioner.

No appearance for respondent.

Ira Reiner, Dist. Atty. of Los Angeles County, Harry B. Sondheim and George M. Palmer, Deputy Dist. Attys., for real party in interest.

LILLIE, Presiding Justice.

By way of Petition for Writ of Prohibition/Mandate, Edward Williams, defendant in a prosecution for murder, challenges an order denying his motion to quash the jury venire. In his motion defendant claimed the venire did not fairly represent the countywide community. We issued alternative writ and order to show cause, and hearing

has been had thereon. We conclude that the Legislature has defined the community for the purpose of fair cross-section analysis of the jury venire in Los Angeles County, as the area of the county within a 20-mile radius of each of the courthouses of the Los Angeles County Superior Court.

I FACTS

Petitioner, who is black, is charged with first degree murder. (Pen.Code, § 187.) At trial in the West Judicial District of Los Angeles Superior Court, sitting in Santa Monica, he challenged each of two jury panels on the basis that neither panel represented a fair cross-section of the community. Petitioner moved to quash the venire or for mistrial, asserting that the black population which is jury-eligible for that judicial district is unconstitutionally underrepresentative of the total jury-eligible black population of Los Angeles County.

At hearing on the motion, petitioner called Raymond Arce, Director of Juror Services for Los Angeles County, who testified that 11.4 percent of the total population of Los Angeles County are blacks presumptively eligible to serve as jurors, and in the West Judicial District, where this trial is being had, 5.6 percent of the total population are blacks presumptively eligible to serve as jurors. A survey of jurors in the Santa Monica courthouse for the three-month period preceding this trial indicated that 4.5 percent appearing for jury duty were black. Mr. Arce further testified that once a randomly selected countywide list of jury eligible persons is compiled, it is a matter of policy to assign a juror to that court which is then in need of jurors and which is closest to the juror's residence; if the quota for the court closest to a juror's residence is filled, the juror will be assigned to the next closest court needing jurors, and so on, for example, if a juror from Lancaster is assigned to the Long Beach court, and the juror objects to that assignment, only then is he informed that under Code of Civil Procedure section 203 he has a right not to serve at a court over 20 miles from his residence. Petitioner argued that he was thus deprived of a representative cross-section of the countywide community. The court denied the motions, finding that petitioner had not met the burden of a prima facie showing of significant underrepresentation of a cognizable group.

Petitioner seeks either a writ of prohibition to prevent respondent superior court from taking further action in the matter except to declare a mistrial and transfer the case to one of two specified judicial districts or, in the alternative, a writ of mandate directing respondent to vacate its denial of motion to quash venire.

II FAIR CROSS-SECTION REQUIREMENT

A criminal defendant is entitled to trial by an impartial jury drawn from a representative cross-section of the community. This right is guaranteed by the Sixth Amendment to the federal Constitution (Taylor v. Louisiana (1975) 419 U.S. 522, 530, 95 S.Ct. 692, 697, 42 L.Ed.2d 690, 698) and by article I, section 16 of the California Constitution. (People v. Harris (1984) 36 Cal.3d 36, 48-49, 201 Cal.Rptr. 782, 679 P.2d 433.) This does not mean that a party is entitled to a jury that mirrors the demographic composition of the population, or necessarily includes members of his own group, or is composed of any particular individuals; what it does mean is that a party is entitled to a petit jury that is as near an approximation of the ideal cross-section of the community as the process of random draw permits. (People v. Wheeler (1978) 22 Cal.3d 258, 277, 148 Cal.Rptr. 890, 583 P.2d 748.) The constitutional cross-section requirement is a procedural and not a substantive requirement. (O'Hare v. Superior Court, (1987) 43 Cal.3d 86, 100, 233 Cal.Rptr. 332, 729 P.2d 766.)

"In order to establish a prima facie violation of the fair-cross-section requirement, the defendant must show (1) that the group alleged to be excluded is a 'distinctive' group in the community; (2) that the

                representation of this group in venires from which juries are selected is not fair and reasonable in relation to the number of such persons in the community;  and (3) that this underrepresentation is due to systematic exclusion of the group in the jury-selection process."  (Duren v. Missouri (1979) 439 U.S. 357, 364, 99 S.Ct. 664, 668, 58 L.Ed.2d 579, 586-587;  People v. Harris, supra, 36 Cal.3d 36, 50, 201 Cal.Rptr. 782, 679 P.2d 433.)   No showing of intent to discriminate is required.  (Id. at p. 57, 201 Cal.Rptr. 782, 679 P.2d 433.)   If a prima facie showing has been made, the burden then shifts to the prosecution to show that "no disparity of constitutional significance exists, or that even with the use of multiple sources and all other practical means, a certain level of disparity is unavoidable.  Finally, it may be able to justify the underrepresentation by showing 'that a significant state interest [is] manifestly and primarily advanced by those aspects of the jury selection process ... that result in the disproportionate exclusion.' "  (Id., at p. 59, 201 Cal.Rptr. 782, 679 P.2d 433.)
                

A. Distinctive Group

Petitioner claims that blacks are underrepresented in the jury venire in the West Judicial District of Los Angeles County. As conceded by real party, blacks are a cognizable, distinctive group for purposes of the first prong of fair cross-section analysis. (People v. Harris, supra, 36 Cal.3d 36, 51, 201 Cal.Rptr. 782, 679 P.2d 433; Hovey v. Superior Court (1980) 28 Cal.3d 1, 20, fn. 45, 168 Cal.Rptr. 128, 616 P.2d 1301.)

B. Underrepresentation

To meet the second prong of the Duren test, petitioner had to show that blacks were underrepresented in jury venires in relation to the number of such persons in the community. But before we can evaluate the statistical showing of underrepresentation made by petitioner, we must first determine what community the jury venire must fairly represent. Is it all of Los Angeles County as petitioner argues; ¹ the particular judicial district in which the trial is had as real party argues; ² or the area within a 20-mile radius of the courthouse, consistent with the statutory mandate that jurors in Los Angeles County cannot be compelled to serve at a courthouse over 20 miles from their residence (Code Civ.Proc., § 203)?

1. Community

The term used in the fair cross-section cases is neither "county" nor "judicial district," but "community." Community is defined in Black's Law Dictionary (5th ed. 1979), page 254, as: "Neighborhood; vicinity; synonymous with locality." This definition is consistent with the common law concept of vicinage, as preserved in the Sixth Amendment to the United States Constitution: "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...." The California Supreme Court in O'Hare v. Superior Court, supra, 43 Cal.3d 86, 233 Cal.Rptr. 332, 729 P.2d 766, distinguished the concept of vicinage from that of the "relevant community" from Rejecting the argument that the Sixth Amendment entitled a defendant in San Diego County to a jury drawn from the entire county rather than from some construct of a northern county subdivision, our Supreme Court in O'Hare v. Superior Court, supra, 43 Cal.3d 86, 233 Cal.Rptr. 332, 729 P.2d 766, stated that "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.... Thus, Williams [v. Florida (1970) 399 U.S. 78, 96, 90 S.Ct. 1893, 1904, 26 L.Ed.2d 446, 458] explains that the Sixth Amendment, as finally proposed by Congress and adopted by the states, explicitly 'left Congress the power to determine the actual size of the "vicinage" by its creation of judicial districts.' " (43 Cal.3d at pp. 94-95, 233 Cal.Rptr. 332, 729 P.2d 766, emphasis in original.) The court in O'Hare concluded that "Here, however, we do have a judicial district, originally defined for the municipal court, but by local rules made applicable to the Vista [a city in Northern San Diego County] sessions of the superior court as well. Not only does use of this district to draw jurors not violate any precedent, but it appears to comport precisely with the statutes which regulate the jury selection process.... (See Code Civ.Proc., §§ 193, 197, 203, 204.5, 206, 206a.)" (Id., at p. 100, 233 Cal.Rptr. 332, 729 P.2d 766.) We thus turn to the Code of Civil Procedure sections relating to jurors (Code Civ.Proc., § 190 et seq.) to...