Morris

A jury convicted Marcus Morris of possession of cocaine base for sale in violation of Health and Safety Code section 11351.5, and Morris admitted he had suffered multiple prior convictions enumerated in Health and Safety Code section 11370.2. The trial court sentenced Morris to an aggregate term of 13 years in county jail.

We find an error under People v. Sanders (1988) 203 Cal.App.3d 1510 [ 250 Cal.Rptr. 805 ] (Sanders) because a juror who was excused in the midst of Morris’s trial was thereafter allowed to testify in the trial as a prosecution witness. We find the error implicated Morris’s constitutional due process right to a fair trial, and that the error was not harmless beyond a reasonable doubt under Chapman v. California (1967) 386 U.S. 18, 24 [ 17 L.Ed.2d 705 , 87 S.Ct. 824 ] (Chapman). Accordingly, we reverse the judgment.

FACTS

Examined in light of the usual standard of review on appeal (see, e.g., People v. Ochoa (1993) 6 Cal.4th 1199, 1206 [ 26 Cal.Rptr.2d 23 , 864 P.2d 103 ]), the. evidence at trial established the following facts. On February 7, 2012, a team of Long Beach Police Department (LBPD) officers executed a search warrant at “6— Orizaba Avenue,…