Opinion ID: 1810649
Heading Depth: 2
Heading Rank: 5

Heading: Whether the venire was tainted due to the jury questionnaire mailing informing the identity of the defendant and victim

Text: ¶ 23. Crawford next asserts that his Sixth Amendment right to an impartial jury was compromised by the identification of the defendant and the victim in the case through a questionnaire that had been mailed to the venire several weeks prior to jury selection. As the State points out, voir dire did cover the questions of pretrial publicity and the jurors were asked whether each of them had formed an opinion in regard to Crawford's guilt or innocence. This is similar to the situation in Gray v. State, 728 So.2d 36 (Miss.1998). There, the defendant expressed concerns over media coverage and the fact that the summons had the words capital murder printed on them. Id. at 65-67. We noted then that any problems that such occurrences may raise can be sufficiently cured through proper voir dire. Id. We find that here, just as in Gray, the voir dire conducted at trial was sufficient to ensure a fair and impartial jury and that Crawford's argument, therefore, fails. ¶ 24. In addition, Crawford fails to cite one case for the proposition that the mere identification of parties to a case prior to jury selection is the type of occurrence for which any resulting prejudice towards one of the parties cannot be cured by proper voir dire. Thus, the claim is also without merit. VI. Whether at the inception of trial the diminished capacity of Crawford to assist counsel and the failure of the attorney client relationship should have been addressed by the trial court. ¶ 25. Crawford also argues that he was not of the capacity to assist his counsel at trial. However, no such issue was raised at trial, nor was it brought to this Court's attention on appeal. Now, nine years later, do we, for the first time, find counsels' acknowledgment that there was a failure in the attorney-client relationship. We have long attempted to protect these post-conviction procedures from the distorting effect that an attorney's hindsight may have upon occurrences at trial. Therefore, we find the affidavits of counsel irrelevant to the determination of this issue and find it without merit. ¶ 26. Crawford also complains that the trial court should have taken steps to afford petitioner counsel capable of maintaining a relationship with petitioner. Notwithstanding Crawford's failure to cite any authority in support of his argument, we will swiftly deal with this issue. Crawford appears to argue that the court should have granted him new counsel on its own accord. However, the burden of raising such a motion and seeing it through falls squarely on the shoulders of Crawford, himself. Not until it is apparent that counsel is incompetent or failing to act in the best interests of the defendant should the court take it upon itself to address the matter. Stewart v. State, 229 So.2d 53, 56 (Miss.1969). Crawford's argument, therefore, is without merit.