Title: Monserrate v. State

State: indiana

Issuer: Indiana Supreme Court

Document:

271 N.E.2d 420 (1971)
Luciano MONSERRATE, Appellant,
v.
STATE of Indiana, Appellee.
No. 368S53.

Supreme Court of Indiana.
July 19, 1971.
*421 B.K. Delph, Gary, for appellant.
Theodore L. Sendak, Atty. Gen., Robert F. Hassett, Deputy Atty. Gen., for appellee.
ARTERBURN, Chief Justice.
This is an appeal from the Lake Criminal Court wherein the appellant was tried by jury before Special Judge T. Cleve Stenhouse. The jury found that the appellant was guilty of first degree murder, that he was twenty-three [23] years of age, and that he should suffer death. He was sentenced accordingly.
The appellant was jointly indicted for first degree murder with Luis Antonio Montes and Geraldo Torres Resto for the shooting and killing of Sharon Diane Potts, age nineteen [19]. Resto was granted a separate trial and Montes, who was sixteen [16] years of age at the time of the trial, was tried jointly with the appellant. Co-defendant Montes was found guilty of manslaughter and was sentenced to the Indiana Reformatory for a period of not less than two [2] nor more than twenty-one [21] years.
The first issue to be considered by this Court is whether the trial court violated the principles for the selection of jurors set down in Witherspoon v. Illinois (1968), 391 U.S. 510, 88 S. Ct. 1770, 20 L. Ed. 2d 776. In that opinion, the United States Supreme Court stated at 391 U.S. 521, 88 S.Ct. 1776:
We note first that in the case before us, many prospective jurors were dismissed for cause after answering in the affirmative a question propounded by the prosecutor asking whether the juror had any conscientious opinion that would preclude him from affixing a death penalty in a proper case of first degree murder. If the juror indicated that he did have such a conscientious opinion, no further probing was apparently deemed necessary. Several jurors merely indicated that they did not believe in capital punishment. As was recognized by the Supreme Court in Boulden v. Holman (1969), 394 U.S. 478, 89 S. Ct. 1138, 22 L. Ed. 2d 433, and in Maxwell v. Bishop (1970), 398 U.S. 262, 90 S. Ct. 1578, 26 L. Ed. 2d 221, a person who states that he does not believe in capital punishment might still be willing to follow the instructions of a trial judge and to consider the imposition of the death penalty in a particular case. At least two other jurors were dismissed for cause on even less tenuous grounds. For example, Ralph Dalton was dismissed for cause after the following voir dire:
We likewise find that under the Witherspoon decision, Ralph Jackson was improperly dismissed for cause, based upon the following voir dire:
The State contends that the appellant waived the question of improper jury selection inasmuch as the appellant cited no authority which holds the Witherspoon decision to have retrospective application. However, a footnote in the Witherspoon case at 391 U.S. 523, 88 S. Ct. 1777 resolves this issue:
Furthermore, in Maxwell v. Bishop (1970), 398 U.S. 262, 90 S. Ct. 1578, 26 L. Ed. 2d 221, the United States Supreme Court remanded the case to the District Court for consideration of the principles enunciated in Witherspoon even though the petitioner's trial took place long before the Supreme Court's decision in Witherspoon. Witherspoon v. Illinois requires only that we reverse the sentencing of the trial court.
We also find, however, that the appellant is entitled to a new trial on the *424 basis of the United States Supreme Court's decision in Bruton v. United States (1968), 391 U.S. 123, 135, 88 S. Ct. 1620, 1627, 20 L. Ed. 2d 476, 485, where the Court stated:
In the case before us, appellant's codefendant at the trial did not take the witness stand, though a statement implicating the appellant by codefendant Montes was read to the jury. That portion of the statement concerning the appellant stated:
Regardless of the fact that the trial judge had instructed the jury to consider the confession of codefendant Montes only as to Montes and not as to appellant Monserrate, we find that we must reverse the judgment of the trial court. Roberts v. Russell (1968), 392 U.S. 293, 88 S. Ct. 1921, 20 L. Ed. 2d 1100, applies the holding in Bruton retroactively to both federal and state prosecutions inasmuch as the rule enunciated by the Supreme Court recognized that the error went to the very basis of a fair trial such that the guilt or innocence of the defendant may not have been reliably determined.
We find that the statement by Montes implicating the appellant cannot be held to be harmless error since the other particularly incriminating evidence used to convict the appellant was testimony of another participant in the crime and of a convicted *425 robber who volunteered to testify against the appellant.
In view of these two recent United States Supreme Court decisions, we are compelled to find error. The judgment and sentence of the trial court are therefore reversed and the case is remanded for a new trial.
GIVAN, PRENTICE, DeBRULER, HUNTER, JJ., concur.