Filed 2/23/18 P. v. Johnson CA1/2
NOT TO BE PUBLISHED IN OFFICIAL REPORTS

California Rules of Court, rule 8.1115(a), prohibits courts and parties from citing or relying on opinions not certified for publication or ordered published, except as specified by rule 8.1115(b). This opinion has not been certified for publication or ordered published for purposes of rule 8.1115.

IN THE COURT OF APPEAL OF THE STATE OF CALIFORNIA

FIRST APPELLATE DISTRICT

DIVISION TWO


THE PEOPLE,
Plaintiff and Respondent,
v.
JOHN DAVID JOHNSON,
Defendant and Appellant.

A150278

(Solano County
Super. Ct. No. FCR286021)


Defendant John David Johnson appeals from the denial of his post-judgment motion under Code of Civil Procedure sections 206 and 237 seeking to compel the disclosure of personal juror identifying information. We affirm.
BACKGROUND
In July 2014, defendant was convicted by a jury of felony child endangerment and related counts, arising from an incident in which he was arrested for driving under the influence of alcohol with his son in his car. Two years later, in July 2016, and while his appeal from the judgment of conviction was pending, his court-appointed appellate counsel filed a petition in superior court under sections 206, subdivision (g) and 237, subdivision (b) seeking the disclosure of personal juror identifying information, as part of an investigation into juror misconduct as a possible ground for a habeas corpus petition. Those code provisions, together, authorize the disclosure of jurors’ names, addresses and telephone numbers to a criminal defendant in appropriate circumstances, on an appropriate showing. Defendant’s motion was based on a declaration by the defendant describing a statement he overheard by one of the jurors, after the jury had been discharged, reporting that the jury foreperson had independently researched the law during jury deliberations and then shared the results with his fellow jurors. The trial court denied the motion without an evidentiary hearing, and defendant then initiated this appeal.
DISCUSSION
Defendant challenges the trial court’s ruling on a number of grounds, but we address only one. One basis the trial court gave for denying defendant’s motion was that the motion could have been brought much sooner, comments we construe as a ruling the motion was untimely. Specifically, the court observed that defendant “was in custody for probably greater than a year’s time post-conviction, and during which time he was always represented by a subsequent attorney, [name], from the Public Defender’s Office. And this issue could have been raised at any time in a motion for new trial and proceedings and it wasn’t.” Defendant now argues that his motion was timely, but we disagree.
We review the denial of a request to compel the disclosure of juror identifying information deferentially, for abuse of discretion. (People v. Johnson (2013) 222 Cal.App.4th 486, 492 (Johnson).)
Section 237 “does not contain an express time requirement but there is ‘an implied timeliness requirement, albeit only a limited one.’ ” (Diaz, supra, 235 Cal.App.4th at p. 1243.) Although each case is of course unique, the parties have cited authorities where trial court discretion to deny a request as untimely has been upheld for a delay as short as six weeks after conviction (see People v. Duran (1996) 50 Cal.App.4th 103, 122–123; see also People v. Atkins (1988) 203 Cal.App.3d 15, 28 [41 days], disapproved on other grounds in People v. Jones (1990) 51 Cal.3d 294, 322), and where a delay of six years was held untimely as a matter of law (see Diaz, at pp. 1242–1243).
Defendant argues his motion was timely under Johnson, which involved a delay of 13 months. (See Johnson, supra, 222 Cal.App.4th at p. 490.) Johnson is distinguishable, however. In that case, the trial court denied the motion seeking juror identifying information on other grounds, and for the first time on appeal, as an alternate basis to affirm, the People argued the motion had been untimely. In that procedural context, the court of appeal rejected the proposition that the motion should have been denied as untimely. (See id. at pp. 497–498.) Johnson thus did not involve the question whether the trial court had discretion to deny the motion as untimely, which is the issue here. Rather, in effect, the court of appeal rejected only the proposition that the trial court had no discretion to grant the motion. Furthermore, the 13-month delay in Johnson is considerably shorter than the delay involved here, and defendant does not explain how the circumstances are comparable.
Here, defendant brought his motion requesting information concerning juror identities two years after he overheard the comments by a juror that formed the basis for his motion, one year and nine months after his trial counsel had been relieved of his duties and a deputy public defender had been substituted in as defendant’s new counsel, and nearly a year after his appellate counsel who filed the motion had been appointed to represent him in this court. And his papers below contained no explanation of the reason for this delay in seeking juror information. Johnson does not compel reversal in these circumstances, defendant cites no authority that a trial court lacks discretion to deny a request after such a considerable period of delay, and defendant makes no argument as to why we should so hold. So, for these reasons, we cannot say the trial court abused its discretion in denying defendant’s motion.
DISPOSITION
The October 13, 2016 order denying defendant’s motion for disclosure of juror identifying information is affirmed.






STEWART, J.



We concur.




KLINE, P.J.




MILLER, J.