Alfaro v. Superior Court
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California jurors “shall be selected at random, from a source or sources inclusive of a representative cross-section of the population of the area served by the court,” Code Civil Procedure, 197(a). “The list of registered voters and the Department of Motor Vehicles’ list of licensed drivers and identification cardholders" in the area served by the court are appropriate source lists. Marin County Local Rules state that after those source lists are combined, duplicates eliminated, and disqualified individuals purged ... a master list will be produced by using the complete randomization technique.
The defendant in a Marin County capital murder case sought discovery in connection with his claim that Marin County juries were not selected from a fair cross-section of the community. He sought the county’s master list of prospective jurors, citing “Pantos,” which held a court’s “master list of qualified jurors . . . is a judicial record subject to public inspection and copying.” The court denied the request, finding that Pantos was no longer good law in light of subsequent statutory developments.
The court of appeal reversed, concluding Pantos is still good law, at least as to the names and zip codes appearing on master jury lists. Section 197(c)’s new prohibition on the disclosure of information furnished by the DMV does not prohibit disclosure of master or qualified jury lists as public records. Privacy rights do not preclude disclosure of the names and zip codes on those lists.
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