United States Court of Appeals 

For the Seventh Circuit 

Chicago, Illinois 60604 

 

Argued January 14, 2020 

Decided July 7, 2020 

Before 

ILANA DIAMOND ROVNER, Circuit Judge 

DIANE P. WOOD, Circuit Judge 

AMY J. ST. EVE, Circuit Judge

No. 19-2381 

ANTHONY M. LEE, 

Plaintiff-Appellant, 

v. 

HEATH PARSHALL, 

 Defendant-Appellee.

 Appeal from the United States District Court 

for the Western District of Wisconsin. 

No. 3:16-cv-00524-wmc 

William M. Conley, 

Judge. 

O R D E R 

The plaintiff Anthony M. Lee filed a suit under 42 U.S.C. § 1983, alleging that the 

defendant Heath Parshall, a police officer for the City of LaCrosse, used excessive force 

during Lee’s arrest in violation of Lee’s constitutional rights. After a trial, the jury found 

in favor of Parshall, and Lee now appeals. 

Lee raises two challenges regarding the trial. First, he argues that the district 

court’s conduct of the voir dire was constitutionally deficient. In addition, he argues 

that the district court erred in refusing to allow testimony as to a subsequent excessive 

force claim against Parshall, which occurred a year after Parshall’s interaction with Lee. 

NONPRECEDENTIAL DISPOSITION 

To be cited only in accordance with Fed. R. App. P. 32.1 
No. 19-2381 Page 2 

With respect to the voir dire, Lee challenges the questioning of the jurors as to 

issues of race, police and crime. Those issues were significant in the jury selection 

process because the claim of excessive force arose in the context of an arrest of Lee, an 

African-American, by Parshall, a white police officer. Lee challenges the district court’s 

decision to conduct the questioning of the jurors during the voir dire, rather than allow 

the attorneys themselves to question the jurors. In addition, Lee argues that the court 

failed to adequately explore the potential jurors’ implicit biases. 

The right to an impartial jury does not require that the attorneys themselves 

conduct the questioning. The district court has discretion to determine the manner in 

which voir dire is conducted, and that can include the judge handling the questioning 

of the potential jurors. Prior to voir dire, Lee presented the court with a list of proposed 

questions for the potential jurors, including twenty-one questions regarding the police, 

ten questions regarding race, and four questions regarding crime, and many of those 

questions in each category included additional follow-up questions or subparts, which 

operated to roughly double the total number of questions. The judge agreed to question 

the jurors as to the attitudes both supportive and hostile to the police, and to explore 

both explicit and implicit bias as to race-related matters. The judge did not ask all of the 

questions proposed by Lee, noting that some of the proposed questions were openended and potentially inflammatory and that “one of my concerns being that I create a 

situation of cross-fertilization of prejudice that may arise.” 

It is well-established that the trial court has broad discretion as to the form and 

number of questions to be asked on voir dire. See Ham v. South Carolina, 409 U.S. 524, 

527 (1973); Turner v. Murray, 476 U.S. 28, 37 (1986); see also Gardner v. Barnett, 199 F.3d 

915, 920–21 (7th Cir. 1999) (en banc) (noting that “litigants do not have a right to have a 

particular question asked”). The relevant question under the Constitution is whether 

the investigation in the voir dire is “’reasonably calculated to resolve the doubts raised 

about the juror’s impartiality.’” Oswald v. Bertrand, 374 F.3d 475, 481 (7th Cir. 2004) 

quoting Dyer v. Calderon, 151 F.3d 970, 974–75 (9th Cir. 1998) (en banc). Thus, “[i]n 

reviewing the voir dire process to determine if it was sufficient to detect or overcome 

racial bias on the venire, this court asks ‘whether the procedure used for testing 

impartiality created a reasonable assurance that prejudice would be discovered if 

present.’” United States v. Jones, 188 F.3d 773, 777 (7th Cir. 1999), quoting United States v. 

Guy, 924 F.2d 702, 707 (7th Cir. 1991). “We review the district court's selection of 

questions to be posed at voir dire for an abuse of discretion.” Jones, 188 F.3d at 777. 
No. 19-2381 Page 3 

Our review of the district court’s selection of questions in this case reveals no 

abuse of discretion. The court questioned the venire at length as to each person’s 

potential bias regarding the police, race and crime. For instance, the questions as to race 

identified that the case involved an African-American man accusing a white police 

officer of excessive force, acknowledged the historical struggles in our country 

involving such scenarios, and asked the potential jurors whether it would be difficult 

for them to serve as an impartial juror. The court emphasized to the jurors that such 

difficulties with impartiality could go in either direction, and that they should respond 

if it would impact their ability to view the evidence in either way. The court further 

discussed the potential for implicit bias, and asked that anyone who was unwilling to 

examine their own views and how they might be predisposed to view the evidence one 

way or the other, even unconsciously, to respond at that time. By allowing the jurors to 

signal the potential impact of a bias “in either direction,” the potential jurors would be 

able to signal a concern with partiality without identifying the nature of their bias – and 

whether it favored the plaintiff or the defendant—thus increasing the likelihood of an 

honest response. The court also asked the potential jurors whether they or people that 

they knew had been discriminated against, whether for race or other characteristics. The 

court similarly explored any potential biases relating to the police and crime, with seven 

questions as to the police and three as to crime. Throughout all of the questioning, the 

judge made it clear to the potential jurors that if they were uncomfortable responding in 

open court they could do so at sidebar, and some chose to do so. 

Lee has not identified any particular questions that the court omitted which 

would elicit further information as to the bias of any potential juror. Instead, Lee 

challenges more generally the court’s decision to question the jurors rather than to 

allow the attorneys to ask the questions, the use of close-ended questions and fewer 

open-ended ones, and the use of terms such as “credibility,” “weigh” and “testimony” 

in the questions which Lee argues are problematic because they are terms that are 

defined in jury instructions. None of those allegations render the process 

unconstitutional in this case. The questioning by the district court, taken as a whole, 

meets the standard of reasonably extensive examination such that the parties would 

have a basis for an intelligent exercise of the right to challenge, and which would 

reasonably assure that bias or prejudice would be discovered. Art Press, Ltd. v. W. 

Printing Mach. Co., 791 F.2d 616, 618–19 (7th Cir. 1986). As such, the format and nature 

of the questioning fell within the court’s discretion. Accordingly, Lee’s constitutional 

challenge cannot succeed. 
No. 19-2381 Page 4 

Lee’s remaining claim fares no better. He argues that the district court should 

have allowed testimony as to a subsequent excessive force claim against Parshall, which 

occurred approximately a year after Parshall’s interaction with Lee. He argues that 

under Federal Rule of Evidence 404(b), evidence of wrongs or other acts may be 

admissible to prove motive, opportunity, intent, knowledge and absence of mistake. Lee 

makes no argument as to how that incident, occurring a year after the one at issue here, 

could establish any of those states of mind as to the incident with Lee. In fact, he does 

not even describe the facts underlying that other incident, nor does he provide any 

argument as to how that incident relates to Parshall’s state of mind in the incident with 

Lee. Lee merely states in a conclusory manner that the evidence is probative to show 

that Parshall had motive, opportunity, intent, knowledge and absence of mistake. Such 

“perfunctory and undeveloped arguments do not preserve a claim for our appellate 

review.” Ewell v. Toney, 853 F.3d 911, 918 (7th Cir. 2017). 

 Accordingly, the decision of the district court is AFFIRMED.