Legal Question in Criminal Law in California

Re: Grounds for appeal: Jury selection

A jury must never be chosen out of convenience, they must be borne of fairness and equity - and only to seek justice.

I suppose the critical question in your case is this: What occurred at sidebar - and what can be proven? Will your attorney admit it in a declaration that the jury was chosen of convenience and not to seek truth - or are you just guessing based upon circumstanes?

Many appellate attorneys can be appointed for free if the appeal if filed within the statutory period. Perhaps you should start there. If not, I may be able to recommend an appellate attorney in your area.

Good luck.

Re: Grounds for appeal: Jury selection

It is the lawyer, not the client, who decides which jurors to challenge and which to accept. Most lawyers will consult with the client along the way, but this is not required. Even when the client disagrees with the lawyer about a juror, the lawyer's decision controls. After all, the lawyer probably has a much better sense than the defendant of how trials work and how jurors will likely react to the evidence.

They also have a better sense of the local jury pool, from which any replacement jurors would have been chosen. You say that "there were no more potential jurors left to call", but that is not true. Even if all of the potential jurors in the room had been processed, more would have been sent to the courtroom if jury selection wasn't finished.

Nothing you have written suggests that anything improper occurred here. Your lawyer had the opportunity to make more challenges and chose not to. This is normal procedure and not something done "without regard for the defendant and just for the connivance of the Court and both the Defense and Prosecution attorneys".

It is possible that something improper happened at the sidebar, but you should not presume that it did. The Court of Appeal won't make such a presumption, so if there is no evidence of what was said then there is not much you can do to challenge this on appeal. You might have a viable habeas corpus case if something improper occurred and if you can get a declaration from your lawyer which says so.

Of course, you might also be able to appeal your conviction on other grounds. The fact that I see no basis for an appeal on this one issue does not mean I think you have no other grounds on which to appeal.