People v. Turner (1994)

In People v. Turner (1994) 8 Cal.4th 137, the district attorney provided many reasons that Palmer, the juror in question, was unfit to serve. Not only did he have "'an extremely poor grasp of the English language,'" but his "exceedingly long" pauses before answering questions that were put to him "'not once, not twice, but three times,'" and his manifest inability to understand the instructions of the court raised questions about his level of comprehension. ( Id. at pp. 168-169.) Additionally, and unrelated to his intellectual capacity, the prosecutor found Palmer "'questionable as to being in favor of the death penalty,'" and was concerned as well by the fact that he had in the past "sat on a hung jury." ( Id. at p. 169.) It was on the basis of all of these factors that the court concluded that there were race neutral reasons for the challenge. In rejecting an appellant's challenge to a trial court finding of no prima facie case of discrimination, the Court said: "Defendant argues, however, that this basis was insufficient here because the prosecutor did not excuse other non-Black jurors who displayed similar intellectual limitations. However, we have previously rejected a procedure that places an 'undue emphasis on comparisons of the stated reasons for the challenged excusals with similar characteristics of nonmembers of the group who were not challenged by the prosecutor,' noting that such a comparison is one-sided and that it is not realistic to expect a trial judge to make such detailed comparisons midtrial.. . . Moreover, 'the very dynamics of the jury selection process make it difficult, if not impossible, on a cold record, to evaluate or compare the peremptory challenge of one juror with the retention of another juror [who] on paper appears to be substantially similar.'" (Id. at pp. 169-170.)