People v. Aguilar (Cal. Ct. App., Jan. 2, 2026, No. D083172) 2026 WL 17897, at *1

Juror confusion is a presumptively invalid reason for a peremptory challenge

Summary: Aguilar was convicted by a jury of multiple offenses for his involvement in a shootout with San Diego Police Department (SDPD) officers. Before trial, the People exercised a peremptory challenge to strike a prospective juror who the prosecutor thought was unable to grasp the concept of intent. Aguilar objected on the ground that the People were trying to exclude Latinas, Latinos, and persons of Hispanic ethnicity from the jury. The court adopted the People’s rationale for the challenge as a finding of fact and overruled the defendant’s objection.

Aguilar appealed claiming that this finding was not supported by substantial evidence. The Court agreed. There is no evidence that this juror was confused about intent and in fact shows that she understood the concept and appropriately answered the prosecutor’s questions. The Court reversed the judgment and remanded for a new trial.

After voir dire was complete, the People used a peremptory challenge to strike Juror 1. Aguilar objected on the ground that the prosecutor was trying to remove Hispanic or Latina jurors, of which he thought there were no more than three among the potential jurors. Prior to challenging Juror 1, the People used a peremptory challenge on prospective juror number 22 (Juror 22), who Aguilar thought was Hispanic. Although Aguilar did not object to the challenge of Juror 22, he thought these two peremptory challenges taken together revealed the People’s strategy of excluding persons of these ethnicities from the jury.

The prosecutor justified her challenge of Juror 1 by recalling that she “asked almost all the jurors in the panel … whether or not an individual who gets in line, who orders a burger, who sits down, who takes the burger and puts it to the mouth but then leaves the restaurant, whether or not they had the intent to eat that burger.” She thought Juror 1 “kind of kept going back and forth with her answers.” The prosecutor explained further: “When I asked her specifically, ‘Well, if you saw Jane leave but you still saw the burger,’ the answer that she provided, it didn’t make sense to me.” She went on: “I can’t remember her exact words, because I didn’t write her exact—I don’t have quotes, but I do recall that when she was answering and I was going through my questioning as to whether—to determine whether or not she can analyze whether a person can formulate the intent to do something, she was, in my opinion, struggling to do so.”

Defense counsel responded that other jurors had trouble understanding the In-N-Out hypothetical, yet the People only struck Juror 1 for the perceived inability to understand it. He recalled, “[S]he answered the question, I think, the way that [the prosecutor] was searching, which was that, yes, there was intent. And I do think she used a double negative in giving her answer, which might have thrown [the prosecutor] off.” He added that Juror 1 “answered just like any of the other jurors answered.”

The court overruled Aguilar’s objection, explaining that “[a]fter evaluating the reasons given to justify the peremptory challenge, in light of the totality of the circumstances, … there’s not a substantial likelihood that an objectively reasonable person would view race, ethnicity, gender, gender identity, sexual orientation, national origin, or religious affiliation, or a perceived membership in any of those groups as a factor in the use of the peremptory challenge.” The court continued: “The reason for the rulings are —I’m incorporating what the People said about their reasons for using a peremptory challenge for [Juror 1]….  [H]er answers were equivocal. I thought she was a little bit confused on the issues as well. Intent is an important issue and probably one of the primary issues in this case.”

Resolving Objections to Peremptory Challenges

Code of Civil Procedure 4 section 231.7, effective in criminal trials since January 1, 2022, was enacted “to establish ‘a new process for identifying unlawful bias in the use of peremptory challenges during jury selection’ because studies showed that the existing Batson/Wheeler[5] analysis … was inadequate to prevent racial discrimination.” (People v. Jimenez (2024) 99 Cal.App.5th 534, 539–540, 318 Cal.Rptr.3d 35.) The statute “prohibits the ‘use [of] a peremptory challenge to remove a prospective juror on the basis of the prospective juror’s race, ethnicity, gender, gender identity, sexual orientation, national origin, or religious affiliation, or the perceived membership of the prospective juror in any of those groups’.” (Id. at p. 540, 318 Cal.Rptr.3d 35.) While an objection under Batson/Wheeler could be sustained only if purposeful discrimination were found (People v. Rhoades (2019) 8 Cal.5th 393, 423, 255 Cal.Rptr.3d 453, 453 P.3d 89), “[d]iscrimination in violation of this section need not be purposeful [and] may involve ‘unconscious bias,’ ” which “ ‘includes implicit and institutional biases’ ” (Jimenez, at p. 540, 318 Cal.Rptr.3d 35).

In response to an objection to the exercise of a peremptory challenge, the challenging party “shall state the reasons the peremptory challenge has been exercised.” (§ 231.7, subd. (c).) “It is then up to the trial court to correctly apply the procedure set forth in section 231.7 when deciding whether to sustain the objection.” (People v. Caparrotta (2024) 103 Cal.App.5th 874, 893 (Caparrotta).)

The proper statutory procedure depends on the reasons provided. Subdivisions (e) and (g) of section 231.7 describe “presumptively invalid reasons for the exercise of a peremptory challenge” and set out “distinct process[es] by which a court determines whether a presumptively invalid reason can be absolved of that presumption.” (People v. Barnes (2024) 107 Cal.App.5th 560, 578.) If the presumption is not rebutted, the objection must be sustained. Alternatively, if the challenging party overcomes the presumption—or if the party does not rely on a presumptively invalid basis— the court “evaluate[s] the reasons given to justify the peremptory challenge in light of the totality of the circumstances.” (§ 231.7, subd. (d)(1).) The court “shall consider only the reasons actually given and shall not speculate on, or assume the existence of, other possible justifications.”

The justification provided by the prosecutor—juror confusion—is presumptively invalid pursuant to subdivision (g)(1)(C) of section 231.7 unless the trial court “is able to confirm that the asserted behavior occurred, based on the court’s own observations or the observations of counsel for the objecting party.”7 And here, although the court purported to confirm the prosecutor’s characterization of Juror 1’s responses, the record paints a different picture of Juror 1’s responses that is at odds with both the trial court’s findings and what the prosecutor thought of the responses in the moment. Juror 1 stated unequivocally that she agreed with Juror 4’s conclusion that Jane walked into In-N-Out with the intent to eat a burger, and she answered all the prosecutor’s questions clearly and consistent with that belief. To the extent there was any confusion created by Juror 1’s use of a double-negative in one of her responses, she resolved it promptly by responding with a simple “correct” to the follow-up question of whether she believed that Jane intended to eat the burger. This last answer was clear enough to the prosecutor that she asked the rest of the prospective jurors whether they agreed with it. And, for that matter, the prospective jurors apparently understood Juror 1’s answer because none indicated any disagreement.

The trial court’s unexplained finding of “confusion” on Juror 1’s part is entirely unsupported by substantial evidence. And because juror confusion is a presumptively invalid reason for a peremptory challenge, the absence of evidence to support the trial court’s confirmation of Juror 1’s alleged behavior leaves nothing but the presumption.

Applying de novo review in light of the presumption, the prosecution failed to demonstrate “that an objectively reasonable person would view the [proffered] rationale as unrelated to [Juror 1’s] … ethnicity.” (§ 231.7, subds. (e) & (j).) The trial court erred in overruling Aguilar’s objection. The Court reversed the judgment and remand the case for a new trial.10 (§ 231.7, subd. (j).)

Disposition

The judgment was reversed and the case iremanded for a new trial.

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