Juror Relief May Turn to Grief

The Los Angeles County district attorney’s chronic failure to be ready for trials on time threatens the effectiveness of the popular “one-trial” jury system, scheduled to expand to the largest courthouses downtown next month, top legal officials say.

Several judges said that although the one-trial system is working elsewhere, delays blamed on prosecutors in Los Angeles could create a ripple effect that limits juror availability. They are concerned that dozens of jurors would not be used the day they report to court--as required by state law--and therefore would, under the one-day, one-trial system, be excused for at least a year.

As a result, the downtown district, which draws jurors from within a 20-mile radius, would cause strains in other court districts by pulling jurors from shared territories. “We’re going to have vacuum cleaners sucking up jurors in districts with overlapping radii,” said Van Nuys Superior Court Judge Paul Gutman.

Judges say prosecutors in Los Angeles are especially responsible for the concerns because they are repeatedly unprepared for trial. Although defense lawyers also ask for delays, they usually file their requests before jurors have been summoned for trials, judges say.

Assistant Supervising Criminal Judge David Wesley assigns cases to judges for trial in the downtown Criminal Courts Building. He said he receives 10 to 25 motions from prosecutors each week to continue trials. That means hundreds of jurors could be wasted weekly if there are not any improvements before the jury system reform expands next month, he said.

“It’s a very rare day when there isn’t a motion by a [deputy] district attorney to either continue or trail a case,” he said. “I’m not in that court to hear continuance motions all day. I’m in there to send cases out to trial.”

Los Angeles already has had more problems than other counties in implementing the jury reform, which started Jan. 1, 2000. The one-trial system is in use in the 57 counties required to adopt it, and in all of Los Angeles County except for the four courthouses serving downtown. Of those four, the Metropolitan Courthouse and Central Civil West are starting the reform this week, and the County Courthouse and the Criminal Justice Center will be on board by the end of March, officials said.

The goal is to make jury service more convenient and to increase the number of jurors who show up for their civic duty. Although there have been scattered glitches, the program is working well throughout California, said Riverside County Superior Court Judge Dallas Holmes, the head of a statewide task force on jury reform.

To prepare for the one-trial system, Superior Court Judge Dan Oki began warning the district attorney’s office last year that the court system would be required to use jurors more efficiently. He advised prosecutors and defense lawyers that they no longer could wait until the end of the 60-day speedy trial period to begin criminal trials.

In September, Oki, who supervises the criminal division, began requiring that all prosecutors and defense lawyers be ready to start trials no later than two days before that time period expires.

Several judges said that when the one-trial system kicks in downtown, jury administrators will have to summon about three times more prospective jurors than they have called in under the old system. That means they will need to summon almost every eligible citizen once a year to provide the 7,000 to 10,000 people needed each day for trials countywide.

Assistant Dist. Atty. John Allen, who oversees trial operations, said prosecutors have cooperated with Oki’s policy and are just as concerned as judges about having enough jurors. But Allen said that often his prosecutors need postponements because they are handed cases the same day the trial is supposed to start. The office is also short-staffed, Allen said.

“We have been hustling and scraping and struggling ... because it can cause a great deal of headache to us,” Allen said.

The problem with last-minute delays came to a head last month when Wesley refused to grant a prosecutor’s 11th-hour request for postponement of an attempted-murder trial and dismissed the case.

Henry Lincoln, a 56-year-old man accused of attempted murder, was scheduled to be tried at the beginning of January. On Jan. 2, a prosecutor told a judge that the district attorney’s office was ready to try the case.

But later that day, Deputy Dist. Atty. Molly Long looked at the case and realized that her office had failed to subpoena the witnesses for trial. She immediately filed a motion citing the mistake and requesting a delay.

When she got to court the next day, she told Wesley she was not ready and wanted to postpone the trial until Jan. 4, the final day under the defendant’s constitutional right to a speedy trial.

Wesley rejected the request, saying she failed to give an adequate reason for needing the delay. He then granted the defense motion to dismiss the case.

Dist. Atty. Steve Cooley wrote a strongly worded letter to Oki protesting the dismissal. He said his prosecutors do not have to provide a good reason for wanting delays within the 60 days. “We are not going to relinquish the legal right to adequately prepare cases for trial,” he wrote. Cooley’s office also appealed Wesley’s actions.

Oki responded with his own letter to Cooley, saying judges will continue denying his prosecutors’ motions for postponements if they refuse to give a satisfactory reason.

The district attorney’s office is awaiting the outcome of the appeal on Wesley’s decision before refiling charges against Lincoln, who was released from jail after last month’s dismissal, Allen said.