The decision, filed Monday, holds that the trial court erred in simply accepting the juror's statements that he could be impartial despite the fact that he worked with and was friends with the slain police chief. Acting Chief Justice Carol Corrigan wrote in the opinion that judges must be "attuned to the practical constraints of human nature" to find jurors who could be reasonably expected to act in accordance with their oath.
"A given panelist may very well want to be fair and follow the law," Justice Corrigan wrote in the opinion. "They may truly aspire to do so. They may also hesitate to say otherwise. As we have observed, all these concerns are amplified in a death penalty case where the prospective juror might be called upon to decide between the death penalty and life imprisonment."
In a concurring opinion, three justices questioned whether executing someone with a severe mental illness was unconstitutionally cruel and unusual punishment.
Defendant Omar Deen's conviction and death sentence stem from the 1998 slayings of Calipatria Police Department Chief James Leonard Speer and Deen's mother, Rachel Deen.
According to the opinion, Omar Deen had been staying in a room at his mother's equipment yard in Calipatria, California, a small town in the sparsely populated Imperial County near the U.S.-Mexico border. Deen had been arguing with his mother about his father's estate, which Deen was set to inherit after her death.
In late March 1998, he became argumentative and violent toward her and one of his uncles, leading to his arrest.
Days later, Speer accompanied Rachel Deen to serve a temporary restraining order against Omar Deen that barred him from the property. Deen attacked Speer, grabbed the chief's gun and used it to fatally shoot both victims, the opinion said.
Deen then fled to Mexico, where Mexican authorities arrested him. He was extradited and found competent to stand trial despite evidence that he had been diagnosed with child-onset paranoid schizophrenia.
During jury selection, a man who was employed as a technician at the nearby El Centro Police Department was among the prospective jurors. He filled out a jury questionnaire saying he had heard about the case but would follow the law and would put that aside and decide the case relying only on what he had heard in court.
However, he also wrote that he would have difficulty keeping an open mind, and that the accusation of killing a police officer would prevent him from being a fair and impartial juror in the case. The juror told the court that he knew Speer for years, was friends with him, sometimes went out to coffee with him, campaigned for Speer when he ran for sheriff and had some past real estate dealings with him.
The judge asked the prospective juror if his relationship with the chief would make him feel unable to be impartial in the case. The juror said he could be.
Defense counsel urged the court to dismiss the juror, saying that because he had received unknown information about the case from police, allowing him to sit would be a reversible error. Prosecutors countered that the juror said he would be fair and impartial.
A defense attorney pointed out that the juror mentioned he could have difficulty, and that because of his contacts, there was a "danger of polluting the jury."
The court declined to dismiss the juror, saying that his statement that he would find it difficult to be impartial did not mean he was biased.
Defense counsel requested more peremptory strikes due to the high volume of people with law enforcement ties on the jury, but the court declined. The defense urged the court to dismiss multiple remaining jurors who knew Speer. The court refused, saying, "You are going to have to go a long way to find a jury that didn't know [Chief] Leonard Speer. A long way."
The trial court judge declined to grant a change-of-venue motion, saying there was no indication of prejudicial pretrial publicity. Jurors ultimately convicted Deen and recommended death.
Deen's death penalty conviction appeal was automatic.
In Monday's opinion, Justice Corrigan wrote that a pair of state laws require more than a finding that a juror is not presumptively disqualified.
"Both require something more than resolving a question of historical fact," the opinion said. "Instead, they call for consideration of a panelist's state of mind and a reasoned judgment concerning the panelist's ability to evaluate the evidence fairly and impartially."
In a brief concurring opinion, Justice Joshua Groban wrote that the case spotlights the question of whether executing people with severe mental illness should be ruled unconstitutionally cruel and unusual punishment. He pointed to bans on executing juveniles and people with severe intellectual disabilities.
"This court and/or the Legislature will eventually need to determine whether the same reasoning applies to the execution of individuals suffering from severe mental illness," he wrote.
Justices Goodwin Liu and Kelli Evans joined in Justice Groban's concurring opinion.
Deen is represented by A.J. Kutchins of the Office of the State Public Defender.
The government is represented by Charles Ragland and Daniel Hilton of the California Attorney General's Office.
The case is People v. Omar Richard Deen, case number S092615, in the Supreme Court of the State of California.
--Editing by Dave Trumbore.
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