In People v. SanMiguel, the Supreme Court last week took its first look at Code of Civil Procedure section 231.7, enacted in 2020 to combat discriminatory jury selection practices, practices the court says “harm[ ] not only litigants and persons called to jury service, but the very integrity of our system of justice.” When considering the landmark statute, the Legislature was influenced by a 2013 Justice Liu concurring opinion and, in fact, it was reported that Liu “fielded questions from wavering lawmakers about the legislation’s content and existing law on peremptory challenges.” The court’s unanimous opinion was authored by Justice Kruger, not Justice Liu.
Section 231.7 bans peremptory challenges to prospective jurors based — intentionally or unconsciously — on the jurors’ actual or perceived “race, ethnicity, gender, gender identity, sexual orientation, national origin, or religious affiliation,” requires a party exercising an objected-to peremptory challenge to “state the reasons” for the challenge, and, among many other things, makes “presumptively invalid” a reason that “[t]he prospective juror was inattentive, or staring or failing to make eye contact.” For the reason to pass muster, the court must confirm the asserted behavior occurred and the party challenging the prospective juror must “explain why the asserted demeanor, behavior, or manner in which the prospective juror answered questions matters to the case to be tried.” The statute is detailed and comprehensive, but the court’s opinion deals only with these reasons, which it calls “behavior-based,” but the opinion does so also in a detailed and comprehensive manner.
The opinion says a superior court “cannot adequately evaluate the striking party’s motivation unless the striking party tells the court what it is inferring from the behavior about how the prospective juror would perform the duties of a juror.” However, even when the presumption of invalidity is not rebutted as to a behavior-based reason, the reason doesn’t “definitively establish that the strike was invalid.” Rather, “a court still must consider any other reasons proffered and other relevant circumstances to determine whether the strike was unlawful.” Conversely, overcoming the presumption is also not necessarily the end of the story, because a court “may conclude . . . , after weighing other reasons and relevant circumstances, that an objective observer would still likely conclude that race or other protected status was a factor in the peremptory challenge.”
The court specifically did not address the constitutionality of the part of section 231.7 providing that an improper denial of an objection to a peremptory challenge must “be deemed prejudicial, the judgment shall be reversed, and the case remanded for a new trial.”
The court reversed a Second District, Division Six, 2-1 partially published opinion, because Division Six didn’t do the analysis the Supreme Court now says is required. But, as is common, the Supreme Court doesn’t itself do the appellate review it is capable of (see, e.g., here, here, and here), instead giving the defendant another opportunity, on remand, to convince the Court of Appeal that a prosecution peremptory challenge was erroneously upheld and that his conviction for attempted premeditated murder and assault with a deadly weapon should thus be reversed for a new trial.
The court disapproved two opinions of the Fourth District, Division One — People v. Caparrotta (2024) 103 Cal.App.5th 874 and People v. Barnes (2024) 107 Cal.App.5th 560. The Supreme Court denied the defendant’s petition for review in Caparrotta. There was no petition for review in Barnes.
Related:
Former Justice Werdegar named to work group studying discriminatory jury selection practices
