People v. Carasi

WERDEGAR, J., Concurring and Dissenting.

Would knowledge that defendant’s offenses involved the premeditated murder of his own mother and the mother of his child cause some otherwise impartial jurors to invariably vote for a sentence of death? I believe the answer is yes and that the trial court therefore erred in failing to question jurors about these facts of defendant’s case. I therefore dissent from the affirmance of the penalty judgment.

Individuals accused of capital crimes enter a long journey through our judicial system in which the end result may be the loss of their life at the hand of the state. Because it is a constitutional imperative that “[n]o state shall . . . deprive any person of [his] life . . . without due process of law,” 1 the procedures governing capital trials are designed to ensure fundamental fairness to the accused. We address in this case the procedures applicable to a critical early phase of a capital trial: jury selection.

It is vitally important to the accused in particular and society in general that the jury selected for trial in a capital crime be fair and impartial, 2 and be composed of persons who would neither always vote for a life sentence nor always vote for death, but would weigh the applicable factors shown by the evidence and follow the law as instructed by the trial court. “We have long recognized that ‘[t]he right to unbiased and unprejudiced jurors is an inseparable and inalienable part of the right to a trial by jury guaranteed by the *1324 [Constitution.’ (Lombardi v. California St. Ry. Co. (1899) 124 Cal. 311, 317 [ 57 P. 66 ].)” (People v. Earp (1999) 20 Cal.4th 826, 852 [ 85 Cal.Rptr.2d 857 , 978 P.2d 15 ] (Earp).) “In a state such as California that in capital cases provides for a sentencing verdict by a jury, ‘the due process clause of the Fourteenth Amendment of the federal Constitution requires the sentencing jury to be impartial to the same extent that the Sixth Amendment requires jury impartiality at the guilt phase of the trial.’ [Citations.] California’s Constitution provides an identical guarantee.” (Id. at pp. 852-853.)

To ensure impartiality in this case, defendant sought to ask prospective jurors whether they could remain fair and impartial upon learning that he was accused of luring his own mother, and the mother of his young child, into a fatal ambush on Mother’s Day. The majority declines to address the merits of defendant’s claim, asserting he forfeited it by failing to raise it at trial. As explained below, the majority gives the record a parsimonious reading, but in any event, any failure on defendant’s part to make a more specific objection would be excused on grounds of futility.

On the merits, the trial court’s refusal to question prospective jurors about the matricidal and intrafamilial aspects of the case makes it impossible to determine whether any of the jurors held the disqualifying view that the death penalty “should be imposed invariably and automatically on any defendant” (People v. Cash (2002) 28 Cal.4th 703, 723 [ 122 Cal.Rptr.2d 545 , 50 P.3d 332 ] (Cash)) who had killed both his own mother and the mother of his child. Accordingly, the penalty judgment must be reversed.

I

The process by which a large pool of prospective jurors is winnowed down to ensure that the final 12 jurors (plus some alternates) satisfy the constitutional requirement of impartiality is called voir dire, meaning “To speak the truth.” (Black’s Law Dict. (5th ed. 1979) p. 1412, col. 2.) “ ‘Voir dire plays a critical function in assuring the criminal defendant that his Sixth Amendment right to an impartial jury will be honored. Without adequate voir dire the trial judge’s responsibility to remove prospective jurors who will not be able impartially to follow the court’s instructions and evaluate the evidence cannot be fulfilled.’ ” (Earp, supra, 20 Cal.4th at p. 852.)

Voir dire examination protects an accused’s right to a fair trial “ ‘by exposing possible biases, both known and unknown, on the part of potential jurors. Demonstrated bias in the responses to questions . . . may result in a juror’s being excused for cause; hints of bias not sufficient to warrant challenge for cause may assist parties in exercising their peremptory challenges.’ [Citation.] ‘The ability of a defendant, either personally, through

*1325 counsel, or by the court, to examine the prospective jurors during voir dire is thus significant in protecting the defendant’s right to an impartial jury.’ ” (People v. Roldan (2005) 35 Cal.4th 646, 689-690 [ 27 Cal.Rptr.3d 360 , 110 P.3d 289 ] (Roldan).)

Although courts have broad discretion in deciding what questions to ask on voir dire (People v. Cleveland (2004) 32 Cal.4th 704, 737 [ 11 Cal.Rptr.3d 236 , 86 P.3d 302 ]; Mu’Min v. Virginia (1991) 500 U.S. 415, 424 [ 114 L.Ed.2d 493 , 111 S.Ct. 1899 ]), such discretion is not limitless. In capital cases, such questions should be directed at determining whether “the juror’s views would ‘prevent or substantially impair the performance of his duties as a juror in accordance with his instructions and his oath.’ ” (Wainwright v. Witt (1985) 469 U.S. 412, 424 [ 83 L.Ed.2d 841 , 105 S.Ct. 844 ].) Prospective jurors holding such disqualifying views may be excluded from a capital jury for cause whether the juror’s views favor or disfavor the death penalty. (Cash, supra, 28 Cal.4th at p. 720 ; see People v. Livaditis (1992) 2 Cal.4th 759, 772-773 [ 9 Cal.Rptr.2d 72 , 831 P.2d 297 ].)

In appropriate cases, voir dire questioning, to be effective, should include the facts or circumstances of the case at hand so the questioning does not occur in a factual vacuum. “A prospective juror who would invariably vote either for or against the death penalty because of one or more circumstances likely to be present in the case being tried, without regard to the strength of aggravating and mitigating circumstances, is . . . subject to challenge for cause.” (People v. Kirkpatrick (1994) 7 Cal.4th 988, 1005 [ 30 Cal.Rptr.2d 818 , 874 P.2d 248 ], italics added.) “Consequently, to preserve the right to a fair and impartial jury on the question of penalty, the death qualification process must probe ‘prospective jurors’ death penalty views as applied to the general facts of the case (Earp, supra, 20 Cal.4th at p. 853 , italics added.)

We applied these principles to reverse the penalty phase judgment in Cash . In that case, the prosecution proposed to introduce evidence at the penalty phase that the defendant, when he was 17 years old, had murdered his elderly grandparents. His defense attorney sought to question prospective jurors to determine whether they “could return a verdict of life without parole for a defendant who had killed more than one person, without revealing that defendant had killed his grandparents.” (Cash, supra, 28 Cal.4th at p. 719 .) This court unanimously found the trial court erred in denying this request. “[T]he trial court’s ruling prohibited defendant’s trial attorney from inquiring during voir dire whether prospective jurors would automatically vote for the death penalty if the defendant had previously committed another murder. Because in this case defendant’s guilt of a prior murder (specifically, the prior murders of his grandparents) was a general fact or circumstance that was *1326 present in the case and that could cause some jurors invariably to vote for the death penalty, regardless of the strength of the mitigating circumstances, the defense should have been permitted to probe the prospective jurors’ attitudes as to that fact or circumstance. In prohibiting voir dire on prior murder, a fact likely to be of great significance to prospective jurors, the trial court erred.” (Id. at p. 721, italics added.)

Decisions of this court subsequent to Cash have indicated the scope of its holding. In People v. Vieira (2005) 35 Cal.4th 264, 284 [ 25 Cal.Rptr.3d 337 , 106 P.3d 990 ], the trial court refused to put the case-specific information that the defendant was charged with multiple murder into the “death qualification” questionnaire directed to exploring the prospective jurors’ attitudes about capital punishment in general. We declined to reverse, explaining the court “never suggested that defense counsel could not raise the issue in voir dire. The trial court never ruled that the question was inappropriate.” (Id. at p. 286.) As we characterized the issue in Vieira , counsel simply neglected to follow up on the court’s invitation to supply it with supplemental questions during oral voir dire. (See also Earp, supra, 20 Cal.4th at p. 855 [insertion of critical information into the jury questionnaire suffices].)

In Roldan , we similarly declined to reverse, observing that the defendant failed to explain why the existing information he had about the prospective jurors was “insufficient to exercise his challenges intelligently . . . [or] what additional information he had hoped to discover by having the court ask additional questions.” (Roldan, supra, 35 Cal.4th at p. 693.) Cash , we noted, was distinguishable because there “the defendant sought to ask prospective jurors additional questions on a particularly relevant topic that, on the facts of that case, could have undermined their assertions of impartiality.” (Roldan, at p. 693.) The revelation in Cash that the defendant had previously committed two murders “could potentially have prejudiced even a reasonable juror.” (Roldan, at p. 694.) In Roldan , by contrast, “[t]here were ... no prior murders, no sensational sex crimes, no child victims, no torture.” (Ibid.; cf. Earp, supra, 20 Cal.4th at p. 853 [trial court’s questionnaire informed the jury the charges against defendant “pertained to ‘sexual misconduct involving the death of a child’ ” and asked each juror “whether those charges would have any effect” on the juror’s sentencing decision]; People v. Clark (1990) 50 Cal.3d 583 , 596-597 & fn. 3 [ 268 Cal.Rptr. 399 , 789 P.2d 127 ] [defendant was not precluded from questioning jurors in the general voir dire about bias arising from the victim’s serious bum injuries].)

We most recently confronted the issue in People v. Zambrano (2007) 41 Cal.4th 1082 [ 63 Cal.Rptr.3d 297 , 163 P.3d 4 ], There the defendant killed and then dismembered his victim, removing his head and hands with an axe or a saw. (Id. at p. 1097.) The trial court declined to permit defense counsel to *1327 voir dire the prospective jurors about their ability to remain impartial in choosing between life and death in light of the dismemberment evidence, ruling that inquiry about the “ ‘method of killing’ would, in effect, be asking them to prejudge the case.” (Id. at p. 1119.) We affirmed. Summarizing the relevant legal principles, we stated: “[A]s we have said on many occasions, ‘[djefendant ha[s] no right to ask specific questions that invite[] prospective jurors to prejudge the penalty issue based on a summary of the aggravating and mitigating evidence [citation], to educate the jury as to the facts of the case [citation], or to instruct the jury in matters of law [citation].’ [Citations.] [][] We have explained that ‘[t]he Witherspoon-Witt . . . voir dire seeks to determine only the views of the prospective jurors about capital punishment in the abstract .... The inquiry is directed to whether, without knowing the specifics of the case, the juror has an “open mind” on the penalty determination.’ [Citation.] ...[][] On the other hand, we have indicated that because ‘ “[a] prospective juror who would invariably vote either for or against the death penalty because of one or more circumstances likely to be present in the case being tried . . . is . . . subject to challenge for cause,” ’ the death qualification process ‘must probe “prospective jurors’ death penalty views as applied to the general facts of the case, whether or not those facts [have] been expressly charged.” ’[ 3 ] [Citation.] [f] Reconciling these competing principles dictates that ‘death-qualification voir dire must avoid two extremes. On the one hand, it must not be so abstract that it fails to identify those jurors whose death penalty views would prevent or substantially impair the performance of their duties as jurors in the case being tried. On the other hand, it must not be so specific that it requires the prospective jurors to prejudge the penalty issue based on a summary of the mitigating and aggravating evidence likely to be presented. [Citation.] In deciding where to strike the balance in a particular case, trial courts have considerable discretion. [Citations.]’ ” (People v. Zambrano, supra, 41 Cal.4th at pp. 1120-1121.)

We concluded the trial court in Zambrano did not abuse its discretion. “The sole fact as to which the defense unsuccessfully sought additional inquiry—the condition of the adult murder victim’s body when found—was not one that could cause a reasonable juror—i.e., one whose death penalty attitudes otherwise qualified him or her to sit on a capital jury—invariably to vote for death, regardless of the strength of the mitigating evidence. No child victim, prior murder, or sexual implications were involved. Nor, to the extent juror emotions might thereby be aroused, would there be evidence that [the victim] was dismembered while alive.” (People v. Zambrano, supra, 41 Cal.4th at p. 1122 , italics omitted; but see id. at p. 1201 (conc. & dis. opn. of *1328 Kennard, J.) [“the murder victim’s dismemberment by defendant was ‘a general fact or circumstance’ likely to elicit a strong emotional response from the jurors” and “may be of great significance to a prospective juror”].)

In sum, in order to ensure the state fulfills its constitutional mandate to provide a capital defendant with a fair and impartial jury, questioning on voir dire should include mention of case-specific facts and circumstances if they are such as could convert an otherwise fair and reasonable juror into one who would invariably vote for the death penalty regardless of the mitigating circumstances.

n

The majority avoids addressing the difficult issue of whether the trial court erred by refusing to question prospective jurors with particular facts of the case by concluding defendant procedurally forfeited the issue. The record shows otherwise. To preserve this issue for appellate review, a criminal defendant need only have objected to the questionnaire “or to the manner or completeness of the [trial] court’s questioning on this issue.” (Roldan, supra, 35 Cal.4th at p. 694.) By doing so, a defendant alerts the trial court to a possible error and provides the opportunity for correction. (People v. Saunders (1993) 5 Cal.4th 580, 590 [ 20 Cal.Rptr.2d 638 , 853 P.2d 1093 ] [addressing Pen. Code, § 1025].) This defendant clearly did.

From the beginning, defense counsel for both defendant and codefendant Donna Lee were unhappy with the completeness of the trial court’s voir dire questioning. Both in various terms urged the trial court to inform prospective jurors the case involved willful, premeditated murder with special circumstances, and two murders, not just one, as well as other particulars. At one point, counsel for codefendant Lee argued this court’s precedents authorized a more factually detailed voir dire inquiry to determine “whether the potential juror has a fair and open mind . . . under the circumstances of the case.” (Italics added.) The trial court disagreed, responding the voir dire process is intended to determine whether a juror will vote for the death penalty in “any case,” not just this particular case. The court later clarified it intended to determine whether any of the prospective jurors would automatically vote for death if one or more of the special circumstances were proven true.

Later in the voir dire, counsel for codefendant raised the point again, stating: “The point that I was trying to make is that when we started doing the four-question initial screening, the court indicated at that time when I objected that it would be more case specific about people who would automatically give death in a case involving two who are—” (Italics added.) The court cut counsel off, saying: “No, no, I didn’t, sir. If I [said that], I *1329 misspoke myself. The case law is quite clear that you do not get to this specific case.” (Italics added.) That the trial court understood counsel’s objection embraced a claim that jurors should be informed during voir dire that the two victims were related to the accused is clear. But if any question remained, it was soon dispelled. When considering the responses of Prospective Juror A.L., codefendant’s counsel stated: “Your Honor, . . . throughout this trial, with probably ten jurors who have expressed very strong support for the death penalty, we have repeatedly asked to talk about case specific kind[s] of considerations and you have steadfastly refused to do so.” Codefendant’s counsel continued: “We don’t even know whether [Prospective Juror A.L.] could consider a death penalty under the circumstances of this case as alleged by the prosecution, that two brutal murders, familial, for financial gain.” (Italics added.) Counsel for defendant expressly joined codefendant’s objection.

The trial court responded: “I have found no case that says, yes, you should ask a juror can you impose a death sentence where it’s two murders for cause—for financial gain with ambush where the defendant is the son of one of the victims, where he’s the ex-boyfriend of the other one, et cetera. So there you and I part company.” (Italics added.) Later, justifying its denial, the court stated: “But the law doesn’t say that if your view is that somebody who kills their mother for financial gain and under ambush, and your feelings are under those circumstances, the death penalty is appropriate, that you are challengeable for cause.” (Italics added.) Clearly, the trial court understood that both defense counsel were seeking to have the prospective jurors informed of, and questioned about, the fact defendant allegedly killed his mother and the mother of his son in an ambush.

Contrary to the majority’s conclusion, therefore, defendant adequately apprised the trial court of both the existence and the nature of his objection to the “manner or completeness of the [trial] court’s questioning on this issue” (Roldan, supra, 35 Cal.4th at p. 694), permitting the trial court to correct the error. But even accepting the majority’s reasoning that defense counsel’s failure to mention the word “matricide” in his written motion or his complaints following the court’s initial denial of his objection could theoretically constitute a forfeiture (maj. opn., ante, p. 1288, fn. 14), any failure to object with more specificity was excusable in the circumstances. The requirement of a timely objection “is only the general rule. A defendant will be excused from the necessity of either a timely objection and/or a request for admonition if either would be futile.” (People v. Hill (1998) 17 Cal.4th 800, 820 [ 72 Cal.Rptr.2d 656 , 952 P.2d 673 ] [referring to prosecutorial misconduct].) Here, given that the trial court repeatedly and pointedly refused to mention even the lying-in-wait, financial-gain and multiple-murder special circumstances when questioning individual prospective jurors, defense counsel may reasonably have believed that requesting the court to also mention *1330 the matricidal and intrafamilial aspects of the case would have been futile. Such futility excuses any failure on counsel’s part to register a more specific objection. 4

Having found the issue properly preserved for this court’s review, I turn to the merits.

Ill

The trial court refused to ask prospective jurors whether they could remain impartial in a case in which a defendant lured his own mother, as well as the mother of his child, to their deaths in a premeditated Mother’s Day ambush. That decision was contrary to our precedents. (People v. Zambrano, supra, 41 Cal.4th at pp. 1120-1121; Roldan, supra, 35 Cal.4th at p. 694; People v. Vieira, supra, 35 Cal.4th at pp. 284-286; Cash, supra, 28 Cal.4th at p. 723 ; Earp, supra, 20 Cal.4th at p. 853 ; People v. Kirkpatrick, supra, 7 Cal.4th at p. 1005 .) As we explained in Cash , the real question to be answered during voir dire is “whether the juror’s views about capital punishment would prevent or impair the juror’s ability to return a verdict of life without parole in the case before the juror.” (Cash, at p. 720, italics added.) If an otherwise fair prospective juror—that is, someone with the professed ability to follow the law and vote for either the death penalty or life imprisonment depending on the circumstances—would be so affected upon learning certain facts that the juror could no longer vote for life imprisonment regardless of the strength of the mitigating evidence, then that prospective juror should be excluded.

Not every fact is of a type that would be likely to undermine a juror’s ability to remain impartial. Our opinions give some content to the question. For example, this court has found that many prospective jurors might no longer be able to consider a life term an adequate or proportionate punishment for a murderer who has previously taken someone’s life (Cash, supra, 28 Cal.4th at p. 721 ), who killed more than one person in the present crime (People v. Vieira, supra, 35 Cal.4th at p. 286), or who committed sexual acts on a child (Earp, supra, 20 Cal.4th at p. 855 ). Similarly, we have suggested that “sensational sex crimes,” crimes against children or those involving torture might also be the sort of facts that should be revealed to prospective jurors on voir dire. (Roldan, supra, 35 Cal.4th at p. 694.) By contrast, *1331 dismemberment of the victim, at least in the absence of evidence the victim was alive when it occurred, does not qualify. (People v. Zambrano, supra, 41 Cal.4th at pp. 1118-1123; but see id. at p. 1201 (conc. & dis. opn. of Kennard, J.).)

Taken together, these cases paint a coherent picture, delineating the types of extreme situations in which an otherwise impartial and reasonable juror might find he or she is no longer able to consider a life sentence for a particular offender. In such cases, inquiry using the critical facts or circumstances of the case—either directly from the trial court or the attorneys (People v. Vieira, supra, 35 Cal.4th at p. 286) or in the jury questionnaire (Earp, supra, 20 Cal.4th at p. 855 )—is necessary to ensure that the regular and alternate jurors ultimately selected will be impartial and able to faithfully follow the law. 5

In the instant case, defendant was accused of luring his own mother, Doris Carasi, as well as the mother of his child, Sonia Salinas—on Mother’s Day—to an isolated part of a shopping mall parking lot, at which time in the presence of his infant son he completed his premeditated plan to brutally stab them to death with the assistance of his new girlfriend, Donna Lee. He was thus charged with committing “the most horrible crime of matricide.” (People v. Weber (1906) 149 Cal. 325, 349 [ 86 P. 671 ].) Although our society’s constant exposure to media reports of violence may cause some to become jaded, rare is the day one learns an accused has killed his own mother. Matricide provokes strong, visceral emotions, a fact used many times in ancient and classic stories, 6 books, and movies 7 to heighten dramatic tension *1332 and instill a sense of revulsion in the reader or viewer. That defendant could murder the one who brought him into the world could well have convinced an otherwise fair and reasonable prospective juror that the perpetrator of such an abominable act would not respond to the rehabilitative power of the state and would be impervious to the redemptive power of any religious or spiritual intervention: that he was, in short, beyond hope.

That defendant killed not just his own mother but Sonia Salinas, the mother of his child, further aggravates the situation. That he and Salinas together brought another life into the world, and that by his hand defendant deprived his son of not only his grandmother but his own mother as well, could very likely have confirmed for a reasonable prospective juror that a life sentence for defendant could never be justified.

The trial court thus erred by refusing to question the prospective jurors concerning these facts. As was the case in Cash , “[b]ecause the trial court’s error makes it impossible for us to determine from the record whether any of the individuals who were ultimately seated as jurors held the disqualifying view that the death penalty should be imposed invariably and automatically on any defendant who had [killed his mother and the mother of his child], it cannot be dismissed as harmless.” (Cash, supra, 28 Cal.4th at p. 723 .) As in Cash , defendant’s judgment of death should be reversed.

IV

This court has issued no shortage of decisions involving the procedures applicable to the questioning and excusing of prospective jurors in capital cases. Although all would agree with the general rule that those accused of capital crimes are entitled to a fair and impartial jury, the devil is often in the details of how that jury is ultimately chosen—which prospective jurors are retained and which are properly excused. As we map the outer boundaries of the constitutional requirements applicable to jury selection, our best efforts to ensure fairness sometimes fall short of the mark. 8 In this case, awareness of the unusual and disturbing facts of the case reasonably could have convinced *1333 an otherwise fair and impartial juror that he or she would be unable to vote for a life sentence regardless of the strength of the mitigating evidence. Accordingly, the trial court erred by refusing to conduct the case-specific inquiry defendant sought. Because the majority holds otherwise, I dissent from file affirmance of the penalty judgment.

Kennard, J., concurred.

Appellant’s petition for a rehearing was denied October 16, 2008.

United States Constitution, Fourteenth Amendment; see also California Constitution, article I, section 7, subdivision (a) (same).

See United States Constitution, Sixth Amendment (“the accused shall enjoy the right to a speedy and public trial, by an impartial jury . . .” [italics added]); see also California Constitution, article I, section 16 (“Trial by jury is an inviolate right and shall be secured to all____”).

That in appropriate cases the jury must be informed of relevant facts of the case beyond those charged in the information is well established. (Earp, supra, 20 Cal.4th at p. 853 ; People v. Kirkpatrick, supra, 7 Cal.4th at p. 1005 ; see also Cash, supra, 28 Cal.4th at p. 719 [prior murder not alleged in the charging documents].)

Moreover, by relying on the forfeiture doctrine, the majority overlooks that although a party may forfeit the right to raise a claim of error on appeal by failing to object, that circumstance “does nob compel the conclusion that, by operation of his default, the appellate court is deprived of authority [to address the issue]. An appellate court is generally not prohibited from reaching a question that has not been preserved for review by a party.” (People v. Williams (1998) 17 Cal.4th 148, 161-162, fn. 6 [ 69 Cal.Rptr.2d 917 , 948 P.2d 429 ], italics added.) As I conclude defendant adequately raised the issue below and that any failure to do so was in any event excused, however, I express no opinion whether it would be appropriate to reach the issue in the complete absence of an objection.

The principle applies to both sides: The prosecutor is entitled to question prospective jurors on a variety of topics during voir dire to ensure those ultimately chosen are impartial and can faithfully follow the law. “A prosecutor may properly inquire whether a prospective juror could impose the death penalty on a defendant in a felony-murder case (People v. Pinholster (1992) 1 Cal.4th 865, 916-917 [ 4 Cal.Rptr.2d 765 , 824 P.2d 571 ]), on a defendant who did not personally kill the victim (People v. Ochoa [(2001)] 26 Cal.4th [398,] 431 [ 110 Cal.Rptr.2d 324 , 28 P.3d 78 ] . ..), on a young defendant or one who lacked a prior murder conviction (People v. Livaditis[, supra,] 2 Cal.4th [at pp.] 772-773 [ 9 Cal.Rptr.2d 72 , 831 P.2d 297 ]), or only in particularly extreme cases unlike the case being tried (People v. Bradford [(1997)] 15 Cal.4th [1229,] 1320 [ 65 Cal.Rptr.2d 145 , 939 P.2d 259 ]).” (Cash, supra, 28 Cal.4th at p. 721 , citation omitted.)

In ancient Greek mythology, Orestes and Electra murder their mother, Clytemnestra, as revenge for her part in the death of their father, Agamemnon. Roman Emperor Nero is infamous for ordering the death of his mother, Agrippina the Younger, in 59 A.D. Shakespeare refers to this latter fact in Hamlet, act HI, scene 2, where the Prince of Denmark, angry with his mother, goes to her but cautions himself to speak harsh words to her only and not to commit physical violence against her (“I will speak daggers to her, but use none”), saying, “let not ever the soul of Nero enter this firm bosom,” noting that the crime of matricide is “unnatural.”

E.g., Savage Grace (IFC Films 2007), Heavenly Creatures (Miramax Films 1994), Carrie (United Artists 1976), Psycho (Paramount 1960).

See, e.g., People v. Johnson (2003) 30 Cal.4th 1302, 1306 [ 1 Cal.Rptr.3d 1 , 71 P.3d 270 ] (Johnson I) (moving party had burden to “show that it is more likely than not the other party’s peremptory challenges, if unexplained, were based on impermissible group bias”), overruled in Johnson v. California (2005) 545 U.S. 162 [ 162 L.Ed.2d 129 , 125 S.Ct. 2410 ]; Johnson I, at pp. 1324—1325 (appellate courts need not undertake a comparative juror analysis for the first time on appeal in a third-stage Batson case), overruled in Snyder v. Louisiana (2008) 552 U.S. 472 [ 170 L.Ed.2d 175 , 128 S.Ct. 1203 ], as explained in People v. Lenix (2008) 44 Cal.4th 602, 611-612, 630 [ 80 Cal.Rptr.3d 98 , 187 P.3d 946 ]; People v. Johnson (2006) 38 Cal.4th 1096 [ 45 Cal.Rptr.3d 1 , 136 P.3d 804 ] (remand a permissible remedy for Batson error), called into question in Snyder v. Louisiana, 552 U.S. at p._[ 128 S.Ct. at p. 1212 ] (refusing to order *1333 remand because there was no “realistic possibility” the “subtle question of causation could be profitably explored further on remand at this late date, more than a decade after petitioner’s trial”).