Abbaszadeh
People v. Abbaszadeh
Opinion
Opinion
Certified for Partial Publication. [*]
In People v. Mello (2002) 97 Cal.App.4th 511 , 118 Cal.Rptr.2d 523 (Mello ) we reversed a criminal conviction because Placer County Superior Court Judge Joseph O'Flaherty instructed prospective jurors to lie about racial prejudice and make up reasons to avoid jury service. This structural error rendered the trial fundamentally unfair, requiring reversal without a showing of prejudice.
In Mello we assumed this "astonishing" error was a "well-intentioned but misguided" incident. ( Mello, supra, 97 Cal. App.4th at pp. 516, 518, 118 Cal.Rptr.2d 523 .) It now appears Judge O'Flaherty has a practice of instructing jurors to hide invidious bias.
In this case involving an Iranian charged with fraud offenses, tried before we issued Mello , a jury convicted defendant of two counts of grand theft by false pretenses (counts I and III, Pen.Code, §§ 487, subd. (a); 532, subd. (a)) and one count of selling securities by means of false statements (count II, Corp.Code, §§ 25401, 25540). On our own motion we augmented the record to include a transcript of the jury voir dire and ordered supplemental briefing on the effect of Mello .