Bills on jury pools, new crimes signed by governor

Gov. Gavin Newsom has signed a much-watched bill on juries, another inspired by the aftermath of a celebrity death, and new laws cracking down on criminal behavior by gynecologists.

Courts will now pick juries based on tax rolls, after Newsom signed SB 592 on Monday. The bill’s author, Sen. Scott Wiener, D-San Francisco, said he wants to make juries more representative of the communities they serve.

“By moving beyond DMV and voter rolls, and including all taxpayers, our jury pools will be much more diverse,” Wiener said in an emailed statement. “We’re in a moment where we finally have momentum to excise structural racism from our criminal justice system.”

SB 592 will allow courts to continue to use Department of Motor Vehicles and voter records, but will require that tax records also be included to create jury pools. Criminal defendants can mount constitutional challenges to convictions if they can show their jury pool was not representative. Wiener portrayed the bill as in part a reaction to the protests over criminal justice issues around the country.

The California Public Defenders Association and several other organizations lobbied for the bill. Twenty-one other state and U.S. territories already use tax rolls for jury selection.

According to research from the Public Policy Institute of California quoted in an Assembly Judiciary Committee analysis, about one quarter of eligible adults in California are not registered to vote, and these people are disproportionately Latino and of lower income. Census data also shows there are more than 30 million adults in California, but 3 million of them are not licensed drivers.

Earlier this month, Newsom signed AB 3070, barring preemptory challenges in criminal cases based on characteristics including race, gender, and sexual orientation and requiring attorneys to prove their challenges are not based on those reasons. Last year, Newsom signed SB 310, allowing felons to serve on juries.

While California has taken many steps in recent years to incarcerate fewer people, Newsom signed several bills creating new crimes. One of the most publicized is AB 2655, making it a misdemeanor for first responders to take photos of crime or accident scenes for purposes besides law enforcement, which Newsom also signed Monday.

The measure was dubbed “the Kobe Bryant bill” because it was inspired by the January death of the basketball star in a helicopter crash near Los Angeles. Photos of the dead bodies of Bryant, his daughter and other victims showed up on social media, prompting outrage from his widow. Across eight committee and floor votes, not a single lawmaker opposed the measure.

Yet potential legal challenges loom. California law upholds claims like the one Vanessa Bryant filed last week against the Los Angeles County sheriff’s Department. In Catsouras v. Department of California Highway Patrol (2010) 181 Cal.App.4th 856, a California appeal court upheld invasion of privacy claims brought by the family of a young woman against officers who shared photos of her body following a fatal car accident.

But restrictions of the First Amendment right to free speech face a high bar, including the requirement they be content neutral. According to a Senate Public Safety Committee analysis of AB 2655, “It is an open question whether the courts would view this legislation to be content-based or content-neutral.”

On Tuesday, Newsom signed AB 3092. The bill suspends the statute of limitations for civil cases against UCLA and a gynecologist who worked there, Dr. James Heaps. Heaps has been accused of sexually assaulting more than 100 female patients between 1983 and 2018. One year ago, Newsom signed a similar bill creating a one-year window for suits involving gynecologist Dr. George Tyndall, accused of sexual assaults against dozens of women while at USC.

AB 2014, meanwhile, targets a crime committed by male fertility doctors in several states: impregnating unwitting female patients with their own sperm. This law, also signed Tuesday, adds a one-year statute of limitations for criminal prosecution for “unlawful use or implantation of sperm, ova, or embryos” beginning on the date of discovery. The previous law required prosecution within three years of the criminal act, but many such cases were not discovered until children were much older.

Newsom also approved SB 1141, which allows courts to consider evidence of coercive control when considering child custody where domestic violence has occurred. This term refers to a pattern of behavior in which an abuser isolates and threatens a victim over a long period, sometimes leading to violent assault or murder.

Another new law, AB 1927, will bar the use of a victim’s testimony in a sexual assault case from being used against them in a separate criminal proceeding. It follows studies showing some victims don’t come forward for fear they will face consequences, often for illegal drinking or drug use that occurred before the assault.