People v. Mata

302 P.3d 1039, 57 Cal. 4th 178, 158 Cal. Rptr. 3d 655, 2013 WL 3369113, 2013 Cal. LEXIS 5623
CourtCalifornia Supreme Court
DecidedJuly 8, 2013
DocketS201413
StatusPublished
Cited by8 cases

This text of 302 P.3d 1039 (People v. Mata) is published on Counsel Stack Legal Research, covering California Supreme Court primary law. Counsel Stack provides free access to over 12 million legal documents including statutes, case law, regulations, and constitutions.

Bluebook
People v. Mata, 302 P.3d 1039, 57 Cal. 4th 178, 158 Cal. Rptr. 3d 655, 2013 WL 3369113, 2013 Cal. LEXIS 5623 (Cal. 2013).

Opinions

Opinion

CHIN, J.

In People v. Wheeler (1978) 22 Cal.3d 258 [148 Cal.Rptr. 890, 583 P.2d 748] (Wheeler), this court held that, if a jury “has been partially or totally stripped of members of a cognizable group by the improper use of peremptory challenges,” the trial court “must dismiss the jurors thus far selected” and “quash any remaining venire.” (Id. at p. 282.) However, in People v. Willis (2002) 27 Cal.4th 811 [118 Cal.Rptr.2d 301, 43 P.3d 130] (Willis), we decided that trial courts are not limited to dismissing the entire venire as the only remedy in the case of a Wheeler violation: “Under such circumstances, and with the assent of the complaining party, the trial court should have the discretion to issue appropriate orders short of outright dismissal of the remaining jury, including . . . reseating any improperly discharged jurors if they are available to serve.” (Willis, supra, 27 Cal.4th at p. 821, italics added.)

Here we consider whether implied consent can constitute the “assent of the complaining party” (Willis, supra, 27 Cal.4th at p. 821), in the context of a trial court’s order to reseat an improperly discharged prospective juror after the court had granted the complaining party’s Wheeler motion. We conclude that assent can be found on the basis of implied consent and that, in this case, defendant did impliedly consent to the alternative remedy of reseating the improperly discharged juror. Accordingly, we reverse the judgment of the Court of Appeal, which held otherwise.

[182]*182I. FACTUAL AND PROCEDURAL BACKGROUND

On December 21, 2009, Los Angeles police officers saw defendant and Earl Early stop next to Anthony Coleman. Coleman spit a plastic-wrapped item into his own hand, removed a small white object from the plastic, gave that object to Early, and took cash from Early. When defendant was detained, he was holding a rock of cocaine base. At the jail, defendant attacked the two officers as they were trying to escort him to a holding tank.

A jury convicted defendant of possession of cocaine (Health & Saf. Code, § 11350, subd. (a)), and two misdemeanor counts of resisting a peace officer (Pen. Code, § 148, subd. (a)(1)). The trial court sentenced defendant to two years in state prison. Defendant appealed, contending the trial court committed reversible error when, after finding that the prosecution improperly used a peremptory challenge to discharge a prospective African-American juror under Wheeler, supra, 22 Cal.3d 258, it reseated the juror instead of discharging the entire jury venire. The Court of Appeal reversed defendant’s conviction, finding that defendant did not “expressly or implicitly consent[]” to the court’s remedy of reseating of the improperly discharged juror. We granted the People’s petition for review.

II. DISCUSSION

In 1978, our opinion in Wheeler acknowledged that “the peremptory challenge is not a constitutional necessity but a statutory privilege.” (Wheeler, supra, 22 Cal.3d at p. 281, fn. 28.) We concluded that “when a party presumes that certain jurors are biased merely because they are members of an identifiable group distinguished on racial, religious, ethnic, or similar grounds . . . and peremptorily strikes all such persons for that reason alone, he not only upsets the demographic balance of the venire but frustrates the primary purpose of the representative cross-section requirement” (Wheeler, supra, 22 Cal.3d at p. 276), which we noted is a fundamental component of the “right to an impartial jury” (id. at p. 270). We held that, in our state, “the right to trial by a jury drawn from a representative cross-section of the community is guaranteed equally and independently by the Sixth Amendment to the federal Constitution and by article I, section 16, of the California Constitution.” (Wheeler, supra, 22 Cal.3d at p. 272.) We also held that, if a jury “has been partially or totally stripped of members of a cognizable group by the improper use of peremptory challenges,” the trial court “must dismiss the jurors thus far selected” and “quash any remaining venire.” (Id. at p. 282.)

Eight years after our holding in Wheeler, the United States Supreme Court held that “the State’s privilege to strike individual jurors thorough peremptory challenges ... is subject to the commands of the Equal Protection [183]*183Clause.” (Batson v. Kentucky (1986) 476 U.S. 79, 89 [90 L.Ed.2d 69, 106 S.Ct. 1712].) In Batson, the court set forth the procedures that should be followed once a defendant alleges purposeful discrimination in the selection of the venire. (Batson, supra, 476 U.S. 94-99.) As did Wheeler, Batson noted that the federal Constitution does not guarantee a right to peremptory challenges, and the Batson court declined to formulate particular procedures to be followed after a successful objection to a peremptory challenge. (Batson, supra, 476 U.S. at p. 99.) The United States Supreme Court specifically noted that, “[i]n light of the variety of jury selection practices followed in our state and federal courts, we make no attempt to instruct these courts how best to implement our holding today. For the same reason, we express no view on whether it is more appropriate ... for the trial court to discharge the venire and select a new jury from a panel not previously associated with the case [citation] or to disallow the discriminatory challenges and resume selection with the improperly challenged jurors reinstated on the venire . . . .” (Batson, supra, 476 U.S. at p. 99, fn. 24.)

In Willis, supra, 27 Cal.4th 811, we reconsidered what procedures our trial courts should follow after a successful Wheeler objection to a party’s peremptory challenge. We noted “the need for the availability of some discretionary remedy short of dismissal of the remaining jury venire” and that the federal Constitution does not compel the remedy prescribed by Wheeler. (Willis, supra, 27 Cal.4th at p. 818.) We then concluded that “the benefits of discretionary alternatives to mistrial and dismissal of the remaining jury venire outweigh any possible drawbacks . . . [and that] situations can arise in which the remedy of mistrial and dismissal of the venire accomplish nothing more than to reward improper voir dire challenges and postpone trial. Under such circumstances, and with the assent of the complaining party, the trial court should have the discretion to issue appropriate orders short of outright dismissal of the remaining jury [venire], including assessment of sanctions against counsel whose challenges exhibit group bias and reseating any improperly discharged jurors if they are available to serve.” (Id. at p. 821.) In Willis, we noted that “waiver or consent is a prerequisite to the use of such alternative remedies or sanctions, for Wheeler made clear that ‘the complaining party is entitled to a random draw from an entire venire’ and that dismissal of the remaining venire is the appropriate remedy for a violation of that right. [Citation.] Thus, trial courts lack discretion to impose alternative procedures in the absence of consent or waiver by the complaining party.

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Bluebook (online)
302 P.3d 1039, 57 Cal. 4th 178, 158 Cal. Rptr. 3d 655, 2013 WL 3369113, 2013 Cal. LEXIS 5623, Counsel Stack Legal Research, https://law.counselstack.com/opinion/people-v-mata-cal-2013.