Tooby's California Post-Conviction Relief for Immigrants

 

The right to trial by jury is one of the most fundamental constitutional rights that is designed to prevent governmental oppression and arbitrary law enforcement.[288]  The public interest in having a criminal trial conducted by juries is so important that a criminal defendant may not waive the right to a trial by jury except under limited circumstances.[289]  The prosecutor must consent and an express waiver must be given personally by the defendant and will never be presumed from a silent record.[290]  The California Constitution also requires that a jury trial must be expressly and knowingly waived in open court personally by the accused,[291] and the California courts have repeatedly emphasized the fundamental nature of the right to trial by jury.[292]

 

            A valid jury waiver is constitutionally required.[293]  Any error with respect to a constitutionally required admonition and waiver is error per se.[294]  A harmless error standard does not apply to an inadequate jury waiver because the right to trial by jury is fundamental under the federal constitution, and its denial is “structural error,” warranting reversal without requiring a showing of prejudice.[295]  Under the California Constitution, the right to jury trial is also fundamental, and its denial is considered a “structural defect in the proceedings,” resulting in a “miscarriage of justice” within the meaning of California Constitution, article VI, section 13.[296]  A per se rule of reversal applies not only with respect to the failure to obtain a knowing waiver of the constitutional right to a jury trial, but also to an involuntary waiver obtained as the result of coercion by the trial court.[297]

 

            Where the defendant wishes to waive jury, but will present evidence and contest guilt before the court in a bench trial, the record must still reflect that the defendant understood the nature of his or her right to a jury trial, and waived it intelligently and understandingly.[298]  

 

            Because trial by jury is the constitutionally preferred method to resolve criminal trials, the U.S. Supreme Court has made clear that courts should not lightly approve jury trial waivers:

 

Trial by jury is the normal and, with occasional exceptions, the preferable mode of disposing of issues of fact in criminal cases above the grade of petty offenses.  In such cases the value and appropriateness of jury trial have been established by long experience, and are not now to be denied. Not only must the right of the accused to a trial by a constitutional jury be jealously preserved, but the maintenance of the jury as a fact-finding body in criminal cases is of such importance and has such a place in our traditions, that, before any waiver can become effective, the consent of government counsel and the sanction of the court must be had, in addition to the express and intelligent consent of the defendant.  And the duty of the trial court in that regard is not to be discharged as a mere matter of rote, but with sound and advised discretion, with an eye to avoid unreasonable or undue departures from that mode of trial or from any of the essential elements thereof, and with a caution increasing in degree as the offenses dealt with increase in gravity.[299]

 

The clearest case of violation of the right to trial by jury is where the court does not advise the defendant of this right, or does not obtain an express waiver of the fundamental constitutional right to trial by jury.[300]

[288] See Duncan v. Louisana, 391 U.S. 145 (1968).

[289] See Patton v. United States, 281 U.S. 276 (1930).

[290] See United States v. Saadya, 750 F.2d 1419 (9th Cir. 1985).

[291] Cal. Const., Art. I, § 16; People v. Ernst (1994) 8 Cal.4th 441, 448 (anything less than personal waiver by defendant of right to jury trial requires reversal of resulting conviction); People v. Holmes (1960) 54 Cal.2d 442, 442 (waiver of right to jury trial cannot be implied from conduct).

[292] People v. Collins (2001) 26 Cal.4th 297.

[293] People v. Wright, 43 Cal.3d 487, 493, 233 Cal.Rptr. 69, 72 (1987).

[294] Id., 43 Cal.3d at 494, 233 Cal.Rptr. at 72; see also People v. Collins (2001) 26 Cal.4th 297.

[295] People v. Collins (2001) 26 Cal.4th 297.

[296] Ibid.

[297] Ibid.

[298] See People v. Lookadoo (1967) 66 Cal.2d 307, 311, 57 Cal.Rptr. 608, 610.

[299] Patton, 281 U.S. at 312-313 (emphasis added).

[300] People v. Ernst (1994) 8 Cal.4th 441, 444-445.