Opinion ID: 2517596
Heading Depth: 3
Heading Rank: 2

Heading: Failure to Excuse Prospective Juror A.P. for Cause

Text: Defendant contends that the trial court erred in declining to excuse Prospective Juror A.P. for cause during the initial voir dire after A.P., during a private conference in chambers, informed the court that a preteen friend of his granddaughters' had been raped and murdered shortly after leaving their home, that the girls had been subjected to participation in trial proceedings for several years in that case, and that, as a result, the subject of the present case was emotional for him. In a capital case, a juror is properly excused for cause if that juror would automatically vote for a certain penalty or if the juror's views on capital punishment would `prevent or substantially impair' the performance of his or her duties in keeping with the juror's oath and the court's instructions. ( People v. Stitely (2005) 35 Cal.4th 514, 538, 26 Cal. Rptr.3d 1, 108 P.3d 182 ( Stitely ), quoting Witherspoon v. Illinois (1968) 391 U.S. 510, 522, fn. 21, 88 S.Ct. 1770, 20 L.Ed.2d 776, and Wainwright v. Witt (1985) 469 U.S. 412, 424, 105 S.Ct. 844, 83 L.Ed.2d 841.) In the present case, the trial court asked A.P. whether his emotions would influence his fairness in this case, to which A.P. responded: I don't think it would have any impact on the case. I think I could act fair in this trial. In response to a follow-up question from the court, A.P. stated that the circumstance that the victim in the present case was a young girl would not bias his judgment. After voir dire resumed, in response to a question whether he would have a strong emotional reaction to videotaped evidence of the crime scene and of the victim's body, A.P. stated he believed he could examine such evidence without having a strong emotional reaction to it. The court thereafter denied defense counsel's motion to challenge Prospective Juror A.P. for cause, and counsel used his last peremptory challenge to strike this prospective juror. Defendant asserts that the trial court erred in denying defendant's motion to excuse this prospective juror for cause, and in denying defendant's request for additional peremptory challenges. Defendant further contends that because the trial court failed to conduct adequate questioning of all prospective jurors, it is difficult to discern how many other prospective jurors should have been excused for cause. Defendant notes that she exercised peremptory challenges to remove Prospective Jurors V.E., T.B., S.S., and G.L. after each individual expressed some hesitation concerning his or her impartiality in a child-victim murder case. Defendant speculates that further questioning would have revealed grounds for challenging each of these excused prospective jurors, as well as Prospective Juror A.P., for cause. Defendant urges that she was deprived of her constitutional right to a fair and impartial jury, because she was obliged to use, at a minimum, five peremptory challenges to remove prospective jurors who should have been removed for cause, and that the court's refusal to sustain defendant's challenge to Prospective Juror A.P. for cause resulted in the denial of defendant's Fifth, Sixth, Eighth, and Fourteenth Amendment rights to a fair and impartial jury. A defendant who claims a trial court wrongly denied a challenge for cause must demonstrate that his or her right to a fair and impartial jury thereby was affected, by establishing that he or she (1) was deprived of a peremptory challenge that he or she would have employed to excuse a juror who sat on the case, (2) exhausted all available peremptory challenges, and (3) expressed to the court dissatisfaction with the jury selected. ( People v. Crittenden (1994) 9 Cal.4th 83, 121-122, 36 Cal.Rptr.2d 474, 885 P.2d 887; People v. Hawkins (1995) 10 Cal.4th 920, 939, 42 Cal.Rptr.2d 636, 897 P.2d 574; People v. Horton (1995) 11 Cal.4th 1068, 1093, 47 Cal.Rptr.2d 516, 906 P.2d 478.) Defendant has not identified any person who sat on her jury panel whom she would have peremptorily challenged but for the circumstance that she had used her final challenge to excuse another prospective juror. Accordingly there was no error in failing to excuse A.P. for cause. Moreover, any error in failing to excuse A.P. for cause would not have been prejudicial, because there is no basis for us to conclude that the jury empanelled was anything but impartial. ( Ross v. Oklahoma (1988) 487 U.S. 81, 86-91, 108 S.Ct. 2273, 101 L.Ed.2d 80; People v. Yeoman (2003) 31 Cal.4th 93, 114, 2 Cal.Rptr.3d 186, 72 P.3d 1166 ( Yeoman ).) Finally, defendant's claims that Prospective Jurors V.E., T.B., S.S., and G.L. should have been excused for cause are purely speculative, and there is no support in the record for defendant's claim that further questioning would have revealed a basis for removing any of those jurors for cause. Defendant claims the trial court erred in failing to grant her request for additional peremptory challenges. The court was not required to grant such a request absent a likelihood that defendant otherwise would receive an unfair trial before a partial jury ( People v. Pride (1992) 3 Cal.4th 195, 230, 10 Cal.Rptr.2d 636, 833 P.2d 643), a standard not met in the present case. As noted above, defendant has not demonstrated that the trial court erroneously denied any challenge for cause, and no basis for reversal has been shown. ( Ibid. )