Opinion ID: 2070572
Heading Depth: 2
Heading Rank: 1

Heading: Life/Death Qualification Under CPL 270.20 (1) (f)

Text: Prospective jurors whose views on the death penalty are such that they would be committed, before trial has begun, to vote either for or against the death penalty, regardless of facts that might emerge in the course of the proceedings, are excludable for cause ( see Witherspoon v Illinois, 391 US 510, 522 n 21; see also Wainwright v Witt, 469 US 412). This process is known as life/death qualification ( see Lockhart v McCree, 476 US 162; see also Morgan v Illinois, 504 US 719). Death qualification ensures that prospective jurors are able to consider the death penalty; life qualification ensures that prospective jurors can consider a life sentence. In New York, CPL 270.20 (1) (f) sets forth the standard and procedure for excluding ineligible jurors. [7] Defendant moved to postpone the death qualification process until after the guilt phase of his trial. He argued that death qualification as required by the statute would result in a conviction-prone jury and would disproportionately and unlawfully exclude certain cognizable groups from the venire. The court denied the motion ( People v Harris, 176 Misc 2d 967). Relying on Lockhart (476 US 162), the court concluded that the statute did not violate the Federal Constitution and declined to address defendant's state constitutional claim, deferring that determination to this Court. We conclude that defendant has failed to overcome the presumption of constitutionality with respect to CPL 270.20 (1) (f) ( see Matter of Hynes v Tomei, 92 NY2d 613, 626; People v Davis, 43 NY2d 17, 30). In Lockhart (476 US 162), the Supreme Court of the United States rejected a similar challenge to pretrial death qualification. The Court acknowledged that some social science studies presented to the Court indicated that the removal of jurors who held views against the death penalty could affect guilt determinations, but found serious flaws in those studies ( id. at 168). [8] Even assuming that the studies were both valid and adequate to establish that death qualification in fact produced more conviction-prone juries, the Supreme Court nevertheless concluded that the Constitution did not prohibit the states from death qualifying juries in capital cases ( id. at 173). In Lockhart, the defendant's Sixth Amendment claim was premised on the contention that the death-qualifying procedure denied him a jury that represented a fair cross-section of the community. The Court noted that it had never invoked the fair cross-section principle to invalidate the use of either for-cause or peremptory challenges, or to require a sitting petit juryas opposed to a jury panel or venireto reflect the composition of the community at large ( id. [citing Duren v Missouri, 439 US 357, 363-364; Taylor v Louisiana, 419 US 522, 538; Batson v Kentucky, 476 US 79, 84-85 n 4]). The limited scope of the fair-cross-section requirement is a direct and inevitable consequence of the practical impossibility of providing each criminal defendant with a truly `representative' petit jury ( id. at 173-174). Death qualification at the beginning of the trial is designed to serve the state's concededly legitimate interest in obtaining a single jury that can properly and impartially apply the law to the facts of the case at both the guilt and sentencing phases of a capital trial ( id. at 175-176). If we took the fair cross-section requirement to its logical extreme, it would inappropriately produce a jury composed in part of individuals who have indicated that they cannot and would not follow a judge's instructions on the law and would undermine the defendant's right to an impartial jury ( see Wainwright v Witt, 469 US 412, 424 n 5). Defendant concedes that Lockhart informs our inquiry here. Nevertheless, he maintains that independent state constitutional treatment of the issue requires a contrary result. He suggests that pretrial death qualification nullifies our state's historic commitment to diversity and nondiscriminatory jury-selection procedures. He also contends that this Court has regularly recognized the significance of a defendant's right to an impartial jury ( see People v Johnson, 94 NY2d 600, 610; People v Branch, 46 NY2d 645, 650) and argues that pretrial death qualification undermines this right because the process conditions jurors toward a guilty verdict by requiring them to assume defendant's guilt prior to trial. Moreover, he relies on studies that purport to show that the surviving jury is more conviction-prone, possesses pro-prosecution attitudes and is thus poisoned by the process. Defendant's challenge is really no different than that made in Lockhart. At least one New York court has rejected similar claims by another capital defendant ( see e.g. People v Hale, 173 Misc 2d 140, 189-191). Nothing in the language of the state's constitutional counterpart of the Sixth Amendment right to a jury trial (NY Const, art I, § 2) or our jurisprudence suggests that defendant is entitled to greater protection here on state constitutional grounds ( see People v McCray, 57 NY2d 542, 550). Defendant also overlooks New York's history of ensuring that juries are death qualified ( see former Code Crim Pro § 377 [8]). Thus, we see no state constitutional impediment to CPL 270.20 (1) (f). We recognize the importance of an impartial jury, but do not agree with defendant's contention that pretrial death qualification somehow abrogates that right. Defendant's claimthat the jury could have been preconditioned by pretrial qualificationis totally unpersuasive in this case. Defense counsel specifically asked every final panel whether any prospective juror believed that, as a result of the qualification process, defendant was presumed guilty. Not one expressed that opinion. Defendant does not assert that the studies upon which he relies avoid the flaws noted in Lockhart. Rather, he maintains that Lockhart disregarded sound academic principlesundefined by defendantby failing to consider the studies collectively. We disagree. The studies provide no solid proof that pretrial death-qualification detrimentally conditions a jury, leads to a more conviction-prone jury or excludes identifiable groups of people. Furthermore, death qualification does not impair or detract from our well-documented commitment to jury panel diversity or to nondiscriminatory jury selection procedures. As the Supreme Court noted in Lockhart, the Constitution presupposes that a jury selected from a fair cross section of the community is impartial, regardless of the mix of individual viewpoints actually represented on the jury, so long as the jurors can conscientiously and properly carry out their sworn duty to apply the law to the facts of the particular case (476 US at 184). The simple fact remains that the State has a valid interest in excluding jurors from a capital trial whose views on the death penalty (whatever they may be) render them unable to perform their sworn duty to try the entire case free of prejudice.