Opinion ID: 3009851
Heading Depth: 4
Heading Rank: 2

Heading: Denial or Impairment of Peremptory Challenges

Text: We must next decide whether a denial or impairment of the exercise of peremptory challenges occurs if a defendant expends or wastes a peremptory challenge to strike a juror who should have been removed for cause. The Supreme Court specifically declined to decide this issue in Ross v. Oklahoma, 487 U.S. 81, 108 S. Ct. 2273 (1988), stating, we need not decide the broader question whether, in the absence of Oklahoma's limitation on the `right' to exercise peremptory challenges, `a denial or impairment' of the exercise of peremptory challenges occurs if the defendant uses one or more challenges to remove 19 jurors who should have been excused for cause.0 Id. at 91 n.4, 108 S. Ct. at 2280 n.4. We do not believe this to be a difficult issue. Here, the district court failed to strike two jurors who were challenged for cause, and we determine that this failure was error. In order to ensure that these two prospective jurors who exhibited prejudice did not serve on the jury, Owens-Corning utilized two peremptory strikes. We hold that compelling a party to use any number of its statutorily-mandated peremptory challenges to strike a juror who should have been removed for cause is tantamount to giving the party less than its full allotment of peremptory challenges. Because 28 U.S.C. § 1870 requires that each party shall be entitled to three peremptory challenges, a denial or impairment of that statutory right occurs whenever a party exercises a peremptory challenge to strike a prospective juror who should have been removed for cause. Here, Owens-Corning's statutory right to three peremptory challenges was impaired.