People v. Jones

Opinion

AGLIANO, P. J. Defendant Charles Christian Jones was found not guilty by reason of insanity of voluntary manslaughter with personal use of a firearm. Pursuant to Penal Code section 1026, Jones was committed to a state hospital until his sanity was restored or until a maximum term of eight years had expired.

Jones filed an application for release under Penal Code section 1026.2, and requested a jury trial for determination of return to sanity. On February 1, 1985, a jury, by a vote of 11 to 1, found that Jones remained a danger to the health and safety of himself and others. Based on that verdict the court entered a judgment recommitting defendant to the Department of Mental Health for placement in a state hospital. Pursuant to Penal Code, section 1237, defendant filed a timely notice of appeal from that judgment.1 He contends that the trial court erred in limiting his peremptory [402]juror challenges to six instead of ten and in denying his pretrial motion for change of venue.

Discussion

Peremptory Challenges

Jones contends that the trial court erred in limiting him to the six peremptory juror challenges allowed in a civil proceeding (Code Civ. Proc., § 601, Stats. 1978, ch. 98, § 1, p. 260), rather than the ten allowed in a criminal trial. (Pen. Code, § 1070.) He argues that a sanity restoration hearing is a special proceeding which is sufficiently characterized by features and indicia peculiar to a criminal action that he is entitled to the number of peremptory challenges provided in a criminal trial. We disagree.

Jones primarily relies on People v. Coleman (1978) 86 Cal.App.3d 746 [150 Cal.Rptr. 415], where it was the defendant who argued that a sanity restoration hearing is civil in nature. Coleman wished a court rather than jury hearing on the issue of restoration of sanity. The People refused to consent to waiver of jury. Coleman argued that in the absence of his affirmative request to impanel a jury he was entitled to the correlative right of a nonjury or court hearing traditionally applicable to special proceedings civil in nature. In requiring prosecutorial consent as a condition to an effective waiver of jury in a restoration hearing, the First District Court of Appeal (Division One) reasoned that the restoration hearing was “a special proceeding characterized by features and indicia peculiar to a criminal action ...” and that therefore it should adhere to this procedural requirement “as presently mandated in criminal causes in general.” (Id. at pp. 751-752.)