Opinion ID: 1940407
Heading Depth: 3
Heading Rank: 2

Heading: the trotter standard

Text: In Trotter v. State, 576 So.2d 691 (Fla.1991), this Court held: Where a defendant seeks reversal based on a claim that he was forced to exhaust his peremptory challenges, he initially must identify a specific juror whom he otherwise would have struck peremptorily. This juror must be an individual who actually sat on the jury and whom the defendant either challenged for cause or attempted to challenge peremptorily or otherwise objected to after his peremptory challenges had been exhausted. Trotter, 576 So.2d at 693. We have interpreted Trotter not to require an actual showing of bias or partiality on the part of the juror. [21] Thus, the mere objection to any juror who actually sits on the jury is sufficient to warrant automatic reversal. Under this standard, a defendant could object to a clearly neutral or even a defense-friendly juror and still be entitled to a new trial. As Judge Harris noted,  Trotter, in effect, grants a reversal of even a fair verdict in order to reward a party for properly following the procedure to preserve the error. Gootee v. Clevinger, 778 So.2d 1005, 1013 (Fla. 5th DCA 2000) (Harris, J., dissenting). Importantly, neither Trotter nor the cases that it cites provide any state law basis for a per se reversal rule.