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People v. Mayfield1/2/1997
tled because in this case the trial court announced that it was not applying the standard enunciated in Wainwright v. Witt, (supra) , 469 U.S. 412, 424 [83 L. Ed. 2d 841, 851-852]. What defendant fails to mention is that the trial court stated it would apply the even stricter standard of Witherspoon v. Illinois (1968) 391 U.S. 510 [20 L. Ed. 2d 776, 88 S. Ct. 1770] because this court had not yet stated whether it would adopt the Witt standard as a matter of California law, and the trial court considered it more prudent to continue to apply the Witherspoon test as described in decisions of this court such as People v. Lanphear (1980) 26 Cal. 3d 814, 821, 840-841 [163 Cal. Rptr. 601, 608 P.2d 689]. Because a determination that a prospective juror is subject to challenge for cause under the Witherspoon/Lanphear test necessarily implies a determination also that the prospective juror's death penalty views "would 'prevent or substantially impair' the performance of the juror's duties as defined by the court's instructions and the juror's oath" ( People v. Crittenden, (supra) , 9 Cal. 4th 83, 121), we will not depart from the normal standard of review.
1. Virginia Luna
During voir dire, prospective juror Virginia Luna, after initially characterizing her views on the death penalty as neutral (that is, neither supporting nor opposing), then said she did not "like" the death penalty, that even when she "thought it was right" she would not vote for death, and that "regardless of what the evidence showed" she "could never vote to put someone to death." Given these responses, the trial court did not err in sustaining the prosecution's challenge for cause.
2. Adeline Villasenor
Quoting the biblical command "thou shall not kill," prospective juror Adeline Villasenor admitted she had reservations about the death penalty based on her religious beliefs. Although initially she said only that she was opposed to the death penalty "in some cases," she later explained that if given the choice between the death penalty and life imprisonment without parole, she would automatically vote for the latter penalty in every case regardless of the evidence. Again, we are satisfied that the trial court did not err in sustaining the prosecution's challenge for cause.
C. Nonrandom Selection Method
Jury selection proceeded by first questioning each prospective juror individually regarding death penalty views and then proceeding with general voir dire at which the parties exercised their peremptory challenges. During the death-qualification voir dire, the prospective jurors were called in the alphabetical order of their last names. During general voir dire, the prospective jurors were called in random order, except that all the prospective jurors called for general voir dire had last names beginning with letters in the first half of the alphabet. The record does not explain how this occurred.
Defendant contends that this procedure violated defendant's statutory right to random jury selection, created an opportunity for discrimination, and limited the exercise of his peremptory challenges in violation of his federal constitutional rights to due process of law and to an impartial jury (U.S. Const., 5th, 6th, & 14th Amends.).
Because the defense did not raise the present objection to the selection procedure before the jury was sworn, the claim has been forfeited. ( People v. Visciotti (1992) 2 Cal. 4th 1, 38 [5 Cal. Rptr. 2d 495, 825 P.2d 388].) Recognizing that we might reach this Conclusion, defendant contends that his trial counsel's failure to object deprived him of his constitutional right to effective assistance of counsel. We reject the clai
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