Martin v. Superior Court

The three above-entitled eases, although differing in the facts which form the basis of the respective petitions, present precisely the same legal questions for decision. Each petition attacks the legality of the procedure provided for the selection and listing of trial jurors in certain counties of the state of which the county of Sacramento is one.

In the matter of the application of Fred W. Chapman, the petitioner seeks his release upon habeas corpus from a judgment adjudging him guilty of contempt of court in refusing to answer a summons to appear and serve as a trial juror and in refusing to act as a trial juror in the superior court of the county of Sacramento. The petitioner, Chapman, was summoned pursuant to the procedure provided by section 204 et seq. of the Code of Civil Procedure.

The petitioners in the Anastasion case and the Martin case seek writs of prohibition to have the superior court in and for the county of Sacramento restrained from proceeding to a trial of the causes, in which they are respectively defendants, with a jury composed of persons selected to serve as trial jurors in said court for the year 1924.

In the Anastasion case the petitioner was charged with unlawfully having in his possession intoxicating liquor in violation of the Wright Act (Stats. 1921, p. 79) with two prior convictions. Thereafter he was arraigned and pleaded not guilty and his case was set for trial for the thirtieth day of April, 1924. The manner and method of listing and selecting the persons to serve as trial jurors in the said superior court and from whom the jurors were to be drawn for the trial of the two last-mentioned cases folloAved the provisions of the code sections last above referred to.

A discussion and a decision of the facts and the law as applied to the Martin ease will suffice as a basis for the decision in the other two cases.

The petition for a writ of prohibition in the Martin ease is predicated upon the following facts: The petitioner was on the twenty-seventh day of November, 1923, indicted by the grand jury of the county of Sacramento for the crime of

Prior to the filing herein of the Martin petition, the said superior court, over the objection of the petitioner, declared its intention and purpose to proceed with the trial of the case of the said petitioner, now pending in said court, with the persons so as aforesaid selected to serve as trial jurors in said court.

In support of the petition for the writ of prohibition, it is contended that that portion of section 204 of the Code of Civil Procedure as amended in 1923 (Stats. 1923, c. 195, p. 436) relating to the selection of jurors, which provides that, “In counties and cities and counties having a population of ninety thousand inhabitants or over, such selection shall

(1) “All laws of a general nature shall have a uniform operation.” (Art. I, sec. 11.)

(2) “No special privileges or immunities shall ever be granted which may not be altered, revoked, or repealed by the legislature, nor shall any citizen, or class of citizens, be granted privileges or immunities which, upon the same terms, shall not be granted to all citizens. ” (Art. I, sec. 21.)

(3) “The legislature shall not pass local or special laws in any of the following enumerated cases, that is to say; . . . Regulating the practice of courts of justice. . . . Summoning and impaneling grand and petit juries, and providing for their compensation. ...” (Art. IV, see. 25, subds. 3 and 8.)

While the petitioner refers to and relies upon all of the sections of the constitution above quoted, nevertheless the sum and substance of the argument made in support of the petition is condensed into the one proposition, that the law in question is special legislation in that it does not uniformly apply to and operate upon all persons and things throughout the state.

Section 204 of the Code of Civil Procedure as it existed prior to 1923 provided in substance and effect that the superior court of each county, in the month of January of each year, should designate the estimated number of grand and trial jurors required for the transaction of the business of the court and the trial of causes therein during the ensuing year; that the court should select and list the grand jurors, and that immediately after the making of the order designating the estimated number of trial jurors, “the board of supervisors shall select ... a list of men and women to serve as trial jurors . . . during the ensuing year, ...” It will be noted that the section in question, as it existed prior to 1923, contained the further provision that, “In counties and cities and counties having a population of one hundred thousand inhabitants or over, such selection shall be made by a majority of the judges of the superior court.”

By the amendment in question, as enacted in 1923, the basis of classification for the purpose of selecting and returning jurors for courts of record was changed from

[1] It is conceded, as indeed it must be, that where a classification of persons or things is distinctive and such distinction is based upon some “constitutional, or natural, or intrinsic distinction, ’ ’ laws may be made applicable to such class alone, providing the act is uniform as to all persons or things within such class. But it is argued in the instant case that there is no “constitutional, or natural or intrinsic distinction” inherent in the procedure and practice requisite for the selection and listing of trial jurors in counties having a population of ninety thousand or over and the procedure and practice required for the same purpose in the remaining counties of the state having smaller populations.

[2] The amendment under consideration is not, in our opinion, a special law. It is a general law having a uniform operation upon a class of persons or things readily and naturally differentiated from another class of persons or things by reason of the necessities peculiar to the subject matter of the legislation. [3] A law is not special legislation merely because it does not apply to all persons. It is a settled principle of constitutional law that the legislature may classify for the' purpose of meeting different conditions, naturally requiring different legislation, in order that legislation may be adapted to the needs of the people. If the law is to bear equally upon all persons, the legislature must classify whenever there exists a reason which may rationally be held to justify a diversity of legislation. In other words, different persons, different localities, and different governmental organizations and agencies may justly be found by the legislature to stand in different relations to the law and if the same law were, in such a situation, to be applied to all alike, it would not bear equally upon each of them. (Darcy v. Mayor etc. of Sam Jose, 104 Cal. 642 [ 38 Pac. 500 ]; In re Sumida, 177 Cal. 388 [ 170 Pac. 823 ].)

[4] The classification, however, must not be arbitrarily made for the mere purpose of classification, but must be based upon some distinction, natural, intrinsic, or constitutional, which suggests a reason for and justifies the particular legislation. That is to say, not only must the class itself

The power to thus classify necessarily carries with it a wide discretion in the exercise thereof. [5] The authority and the duty to ascertain the facts which will justify classified legislation must of necessity rest with the legislature, in the first instance, to whom has been given the power to legislate and not to the courts and the decision of the legislature in that behalf is ordinarily conclusive upon the courts. Every presumption is in favor of the validity of the legislative act and the legislative classification will not therefore be disturbed unless it is palpably arbitrary in its nature and neither founded upon nor supported by reason. (In the Matter of a Proceeding to Validate the Sutter-Butte By-Pass Assessment No. 6 of the Sacramento and San Joaquin Drainage District, 191 Cal. 650 [ 218 Pac. 27 ].) [6] It follows that in any given case if the existence of, a state of facts of which the court may take judicial notice seems to have been made the basis of a particular piece of legislation and if it may be reasonably said that such facts afford good ground for the making of a particular classification the legislative enactment will be upheld although the reason therefor does not appear prima facie in the law itself. (Stevenson v.

[7] It cannot be said that the classification made by the legislature in the instant case is palpably arbitrary and was made merely for the purpose of a classification which bears no relation to the inherent purpose of the law. To the contrary, we are of the opinion that good and sufficient reason existed for the classification. The amendment in question doubtless was enacted in order to facilitate and expedite the work of the superior courts in the more populous counties of the state. Manifestly, the plan of having trial jurors in such counties selected by a majority of the judges of the superior courts rather than by the board of supervisors of the county tends to promote the efficiency and expedition of the business of the courts.

[8] In determining the need and propriety of classified legislation, where the same does not appear upon the face of the legislative enactment, the court may resort to its judicial knowledge of the contemporaneous conditions and situation of the people, the existing economic, soeiologic, and civic policy of the state and all other matters of common knowledge. [9] It is a matter of common knowledge, to be noticed judicially, that there are several counties of the state each possessing a population many times greater than the population of each of the remaining counties of the state; that the counties with the greater populations have vastly more court business and consequently require many more trial jurors than the less populous counties; that the boards of supervisors of the counties of the greater population have a larger, more continuous and complicated volume of official business to deal with and dispose of than do the boards of supervisors of the many less populous counties; that the boards of supervisors of the more populous counties are personally acquainted with only a comparatively small percentage of their constituents and, therefore, less qualified to determine who, among their constituents, possess the degree

The ease of In re Brady, 65 Cal. App. 345 [ 224 Pac. 252 ], cited and relied upon in support of the contention that the legislature has no power to make the classification

The point is suggested rather than argued that the legislation in question is special legislation in that the numerical basis of classification was reduced from one hundred thousand-to ninety thousand for the express purpose of admitting Sacramento County into the group of larger counties. [10] It will suffice to say that it does not appear upon the face of the legislation that this was the purpose of the legislature and while it may, nevertheless, well be argued that that was the legislative purpose and intent, still the fact remains that the power of determining the numerical basis

Incidental to the main point presented in support of the petition, it is argued that sections 204a to and including 204e of the Code of Civil Procedure are violative of article I, section 21, of the constitution, in that the appointment of a jury commissioner and the listing of juries by him is made optional with the judges of the superior courts in the various counties wherein the provisions of these sections purport to have operation and effect. The constitutional provision last above referred to has to do and deals only with special privileges or immunities and we fail to perceive, and counsel for the petitioner has not pointed out, how or in what manner the appointment of a jury commissioner as a part of the judicial system of the state to serve certain designated courts can be construed and counted a special privilege or immunity within the meaning of those constitutional provisions. The most that we can make out of the contention of the petitioner in this particular is that the creation of the office of jury commissioner is tantamount to the creation of a county office, and being optional with the judges of the courts wherein such appointment may be made runs counter to the uniformity of the system of county government prevailing throughout the state. The ease of Coulter v. Pool, 187 Cal. 181 [ 201 Pac. 120 ], is cited in support of the contention thus apparently made. That ease is readily distinguishable from and has no application to the situation here. There it was held in effect that a legislative enactment giving to boards of supervisors the power, at their option, to appoint a county engineer in the place and stead of the county surveyor permitted the creation of a county office contrary to the constitutional provisions (art. XI, sec. 4) which contemplate and command a uniform system of county government.

The writ of habeas corpus heretofore issued in the Chapman case is dismissed and the petitioner remanded to the custody from whence he came.

r The order to show cause heretofore issued in the Anastasion case is dismissed and the petition for a peremptory writ of prohibition is denied.-

The order to show cause heretofore issued in the Martin case is dismissed and the petition for a peremptory writ of prohibition is denied.

Richards, J., Waste, J., Lawlor, J., Seawell, J., Shenk, J., and Myers, C. J., concurred.