California Court of Appeal

In this case, a jury found defendant guilty of felony vandalism, making criminal threats, and assault with a deadly weapon, and the trial court sentenced defendant to state prison for four years and eight months. Defendant challenges the prosecution's successful motion contesting the exercise of defense counsel’s peremptory challenges as being premised on invidious group bias against Caucasian potential jurors. The judgment is affirmed, where: 1) an error in overruling a peremptory does not result in any fundamental unfairness, and so a defendant must affirmatively demonstrate prejudice; 2) the difficulty in establishing prejudice from the inclusion of a merely objectionable juror in deliberations is not a sufficient reason for automatic reversal; 3) defendant must demonstrate either bias or other grounds for a challenge for cause on the part of either juror in order to establish the necessary prejudice for reversal; and 4) the purportedly erroneous Wheeler-Batson ruling, the threat of sanctions, and the seating of the objectionable jurors are not sufficient to entitle defendant to reversal.

Appellate Information

• Decided 03/06/2015
• Published 03/06/2015

Judges

• Butz

Court

• California Court of Appeal

Counsel