Opinion ID: 1324457
Heading Depth: 1
Heading Rank: 2

Heading: Jurors Excused Because of Unwillingness To Take Oath

Text: The court's action in excusing, in its discretion and upon its own motion, three prospective jurors who refused to take the customary oath, is not ground for granting the defendant a new trial. According to the record, only one of these prospective jurors expressed a willingness to affirm rather than swear. The record indicates that no question was propounded to any of them. They were not challenged. They were excused by the court. The record discloses no other information about any of them or concerning the reason for the court's action. The record does not state that they were excused because of their objection to taking an oath. While the record shows an exception by the defendant to each of these actions of the court, it does not show any objection thereto interposed at the time. In oral argument in this Court, counsel for the defendant stated frankly that no such objection was then interposed, the exceptions having been entered in preparation of the statement of the case on appeal. The desire of a prospective juror to affirm rather than take an oath is not, of itself, cause for challenge in this State. See: G.S. § 9-14; G.S. § 11-11. On the other hand, nothing else appearing, even the erroneous allowance of an improper challenge for cause does not entitle the adverse party to a new trial, so long as only those who are competent and qualified to serve are actually empaneled upon the jury which tried his case. This is especially true where, as here, the adverse party did not exhaust his peremptory challenges. See: State v. Vann, 162 N.C. 534, 77 S.E. 295; State v. Cunningham, 72 N.C. 469, 474. The defendant is not entitled to a jury of his selection or choice but only to a jury selected pursuant to law and without unconstitutional discrimination against a class or substantial group of the community from which the jury panel is drawn. He had no vested right to a particular juror. State v. Vann, supra. It has long been established in this State that it is the right and duty of the court to see that a competent, fair and impartial jury is empaneled and, to that end, the court, in its discretion, may excuse a prospective juror without a challenge by either party. State v. Vann, supra; State v. Vick, supra; State v. Boon, 80 N.C. 461; State v. Jones, 80 N.C. 415. It is immaterial that this is done as the result of information voluntarily disclosed by the prospective juror without questioning. State v. Vick, supra. We must bear in mind that the trial judge had these prospective jurors before him and thus had an opportunity to observe their apparent qualifications, an advantage which a virtually empty record does not afford us. With nothing in the record to guide us, we cannot say that there was not in the appearance or manner of these three prospective jurors sufficient indication of their lack of qualification to serve as jurors in a case of this serious and important nature. But even if we might have reached a different conclusion in this respect from that reached by the trial judge, it has been settled in this State since as long ago as State v. Ward, 9 N.C. 443, that an irregularity in forming a jury is waived by silence of a party at the time of the court's action. There, Henderson, J., later C. J., said, He shall not by consent of this kind, take a double chance on acquittal by the jury so selected or a new trial because of such irregularity in the selection. See also State v. Boon, supra. For a recent recognition of the discretion of the trial judge in excusing a prospective juror without a challenge, see State v. Spence (first hearing), 271 N.C. 23, 32, 155 S.E.2d 802. The defendant does not contend that this action of the trial judge was a systematic exclusion from the jury of members of a class to which the defendant himself belongs. His contention is that the court excluded from the jury a class of persons, i.e., those who have scruples against taking an oath, and thereby deprived the defendant of a jury drawn from a fair cross section of the community. See Witherspoon v. Illinois, supra; Hernandez v. Texas, 347 U. S. 475, 74 S.Ct. 667, 98 L.Ed. 866; Thiel v. Southern Pacific Co., 328 U.S. 217, 66 S. Ct. 984, 90 L.Ed. 1181; Smith v. Texas, 311 U.S. 128, 61 S.Ct. 164, 85 L.Ed. 84. There is nothing in the record to indicate that persons who have conscientious scruples against taking an oath that they will properly perform their duties as jurors constitute any substantial proportion of the prospective jurors in Wayne County and we know of nothing which would so indicate. Nor does the record show, or circumstances known to us indicate, that jurors with such scruples would be less inclined than others to convict or to impose the death penalty. Such scruples are not limited to members of a single religious denomination or sect. It may well be that such a person would be a strict constructionist of the more retributive provisions of the Mosaic law. In any event, the defendant, having the same opportunity as the trial judge to observe these three prospective jurors in the courtroom, did not object to their being excused from the jury until after the verdict was rendered. Hernandez v. Texas, supra, establishes that a defendant complaining of group discrimination in the selection of the jury which tried him has the burden of proving that persons excluded from the jury are members of a spearate class in the county from which the jury comes. Swain v. Alabama, supra, states that the first step to be taken by such a defendant is to establish that the persons excluded belong to an identifiable group in the community which may be the subject of prejudice. That is, the ultimate question in such a situation is whether the jury selected represented a fair cross section of the entire community. The burden is upon the defendant to establish that it did not. Swain v. Alabama, supra; Hernandez v. Texas, supra. The record before us does not lead to this conclusion.