Opinion ID: 1940407
Heading Depth: 3
Heading Rank: 1

Heading: the majority concerns

Text: In various ways, the majority insists that modifying the per se rule of Trotter would be disastrous. The majority maintains that modifying the Trotter standard to require proof of actual harm for a conviction to be reversed would compromise the constitutional right to trial by an impartial jury. Respectfully, these statements are without substantive support. They are not supported by either the express rationale of prior cases from this Court, extrajudicial studies, or even anecdotal evidence that show a per se error rule is necessary to avoid impairing a party's state constitutional right to trial by jury. My point is best illustrated by a few simple questions unanswered by the majority. Where is the evidence that the constitutional right to trial by jury was impaired by the harmless error standard prior to Hill or Trotter? What evidence is there of any such impairment in the federal system or the majority of other states that require the proof of harm? The majority says that the curative use of a peremptory violates a defendant's right to a trial by impartial jury when that defendant can show that he or she went without the peremptories needed to strike a seated juror. Majority op. at 102-03. This begs the real constitutional question. Unless this seated juror is shown to be partial, how is the defendant's constitutional right to trial by an impartial jury deemed violated? The majority's conclusion that the mere loss of a peremptory challenge is always a violation of the right to a trial by an impartial jury can only be true if (1) that seated juror is always deemed partial and (2) one ignores the historical fact that correcting judicial errors on the spot is a primary reason peremptories were originally granted to parties. Since I have already addressed the historical purpose of peremptory challenges, I will speak only to the first part. Without a requirement to show that the seated juror was objectionable, one must either totally ignore the rebuttable presumption that a juror is impartial or one must turn this presumption on its head. To do either flies in the face of previous statements by this Court and the United States Supreme Court that there is a rebuttable presumption that jurors are impartial. Irvin v. Dowd, 366 U.S. 717, 723, 81 S.Ct. 1639, 6 L.Ed.2d 751 (1961); Kessler v. State, 752 So.2d 545, 552 (Fla.1999) (quoting Bundy v. State, 471 So.2d 9, 19-20 (Fla.1985)). Lastly, in its most extraordinary justification for maintaining the per se error rule, the majority says it is concerned that a defendant required to show harm could lose the ability to exercise all peremptories in situations where the trial court wrongly, although not purposefully, denies cause challenges equal to the number of peremptories granted and that without the Trotter per se reversal rule the defendant would have no remedy. I find nothing to support this concern. As I noted earlier, there is no evidence that any such problems have ever existed in Florida's trial courts. See supra note 4. And this concern is completely unsupported in the record before us. There is nothing in the selection of Busby's jury that even hints at any such injustice. See supra note 1. Absent any historical or record support for the concern about the wholesale loss of peremptories, I believe we should exercise the same restraint that the United States Supreme Court exercised sixteen years ago in Ross v. Oklahoma, 487 U.S. 81, 91 n. 5, 108 S.Ct. 2273, 101 L.Ed.2d 80 (1988), and not answer a question that is not before us. In Ross, the United States Supreme Court left this exact question open, and it has not had to address this open question since. Respectfully, we should exercise the same restraint.