Opinion
NOT TO BE PUBLISHED
Super. Ct. No. 07F02492.
CANTIL-SAKAUYE, J.
A jury convicted defendant Lydell Ivan Buie of two counts of assault with a deadly weapon, and found as to each count that defendant personally inflicted great bodily injury. (Pen. Code, §§ 245, subd. (a)(1), 12022.7. subd. (a).) The trial court sentenced him to prison for seven years. Defendant timely filed this appeal.
Defendant contends the trial court should have granted his motion to obtain confidential juror information. We disagree with defendant’s claim, and shall affirm the judgment.
FACTS
In March 2007, defendant and his girlfriend left a Sacramento bar after she got into an altercation with another woman. As they left, the other woman ran after them and the two women fought. As two other women tried to intervene, defendant pushed one down and began kicking the woman on the ground. When men from the bar tried to intervene, defendant stabbed two with a knife, inflicting serious injuries. Defendant fled, but was found hiding in a trash can.
Defendant did not testify, but argued self-defense and defense of another.
DISCUSSION
Background
Before sentencing, the defense moved for access to juror information, alleging the foreperson had concealed the fact that she knew V. H., one of the victims.
The motion was supported by an excerpt of voir dire, in which the foreperson stated she worked at the bar in question when she was 21, approximately “20 years ago,” but that she was not familiar with the potential witnesses and would not be biased for or against either side. V. H. had been listed as a potential witness. The motion was also supported by an excerpt of V. H.’s trial testimony, in which he testified the bar had been in his family since 1982 and that he had worked there in different capacities. The defense theory was that if the juror worked at the bar in 1987, 20 years before the voir dire, and if it was owned by V. H.’s family since 1982, the juror must have known him.
The People opposed the motion, in part pointing out that because V. H. was 11 years old in 1982, it was unlikely he spent much time at the bar when the juror worked there.
The trial court denied the motion, finding there was no evidence the juror made any misrepresentation, there was no showing the alleged juror misconduct was of the type likely to have influenced the verdicts, and that defense counsel had failed to show she made diligent efforts to contact jurors through other means.
Analysis
In People v. Rhodes (1989) 212 Cal.App.3d 541 (Rhodes), this court discussed the competing policy interests regarding access to juror information, and developed the following test:
“[U]pon timely motion, counsel for a convicted defendant is entitled to the list of jurors who served in the case, including addresses and telephone numbers, if the defendant sets forth a sufficient showing to support a reasonable belief that jury misconduct occurred, that diligent efforts were made to contact the jurors through other means, and that further investigation is necessary to provide the court with adequate information to rule on a motion for new trial....
“Absent a satisfactory, preliminary showing of possible juror misconduct, the strong public interests in the integrity of our jury system and a juror’s right to privacy outweigh the countervailing public interest served by disclosure of the juror information as a matter of right in each case.” (Rhodes, supra, 212 Cal.App.3d at pp. 551-552.)
Although there have been subsequent statutory developments, (see Stats. 1992, ch. 971, §§ 2-3, pp. 4597-4598 [adding Code Civ. Proc., § 237 & amending Code Civ Proc., § 206]) the passage of Rhodes quoted above states the appropriate test. (Townsel v. Superior Court (1999) 20 Cal.4th 1084, 1093-1094; People v. Carrasco (2008) 163 Cal.App.4th 978, 990 (Carrasco) [“the Rhodes test survived the [statutory] amendments”].)
The burden of establishing good cause lies with the movant, (People v. Granish (1996) 41 Cal.App.4th 1117, 1131 (Granish)) and we review the trial court’s ruling for an abuse of discretion. (People v. Jones (1998) 17 Cal.4th 279, 317; Carrasco, supra, at p. 991.)
Under these standards, the trial court acted well within its discretion in denying defendant’s motion.
First, the motion did not show what steps counsel took to locate any jurors, therefore the trial court properly found a lack of diligence in obtaining the information by other means. Defendant tacitly concedes no diligence was shown, but argues diligence is not required by the statutes adopted after Rhodes was decided. We disagree. Code of Civil Procedure section 237, subdivision (b) explicitly requires “good cause” for release of the information, and good cause encompasses a showing that the information could not be obtained by other reasonable means. The purpose of making the statutory changes in Code of Civil Procedure sections 206 and 237 was to restrict access to juror information, not expand it beyond the Rhodes test. (See People v. Wilson (1996) 43 Cal.App.4th 839, 850-852; Granish, supra, 41 Cal.App.4th at pp. 1124-1129.)
Second, the motion was based on speculation. The juror disclosed that she had worked at the bar. She also stated she did not know any prospective witnesses. There was no dispute that V. H. was a minor during the overlap between 1982, when V. H.’s family acquired the bar, and 1987, when the juror last worked at the bar. Based on the defense showing, there is no reason to suppose the juror lied when she stated she did not know the prospective witnesses. The trial court did not abuse its discretion in finding the defense had not carried its burden to show a plausible claim of juror misconduct.
To the extent defendant recasts his claim as a denial of his right to due process, we reject the claim. First, because defendant failed to lodge a due process objection in the trial court, the claim has been forfeited. (See 6 Witkin & Epstein, Cal. Crim. Law (3d ed. 2000) Appeal, § 141.) Second, neutral application of a valid state law does not of itself violate due process. (See, e.g., People v. Fudge (1994) 7 Cal.4th 1075, 1102-1103 [application of state evidentiary rules].) In particular, the state law restrictions on disclosure of juror information do not violate due process. (People v. Santos (2007) 147 Cal.App.4th 965, 979-980 [“no authority for the proposition that there is a deeply rooted right in this nation’s history to question the jury about its deliberative process after the verdict as a component of the right to an impartial jury”].) Nor has defendant shown that the trial court departed from state law in the manner in which it considered and denied his motion. Accordingly, we reject the due process claim.
DISPOSITION
The judgment is affirmed.
We concur: RAYE, Acting P. J., ROBIE, J.