Opinion ID: 1863727
Heading Depth: 2
Heading Rank: 3

Heading: United States v. Martinez-Salazar

Text: ś 83. Looking backward, we can see that the Ramos decision read too much into the Supreme Court's decision in Ross v. Oklahoma and did not anticipate the decision in Martinez-Salazar. ś 84. The Ross court was closely divided. [11] The case involved a homicide defendant subject to the death penalty. The trial judge erred in declining to excuse a juror who should have been excused for cause. The defendant was required to use one of his nine peremptory strikes to cure the error, as provided by Oklahoma law. The Supreme Court did not reverse the conviction, rejecting the argument that the use of a peremptory challenge to correct an error was a violation of the Sixth Amendment right to an impartial jury. The Court said: So long as the jury that sits is impartial, the fact that the defendant had to use a peremptory challenge to achieve that result does not mean the Sixth Amendment was violated. Ross, 487 U.S. at 88. ś 85. The Court also rejected the argument that the use of the peremptory to correct the judge's error violated his Fourteenth Amendment right to due process by arbitrarily depriving him of the full complement of nine peremptory challenges allowed under Oklahoma law. Id. at 89. But the Court then backpedaled from its holding by stressing that Oklahoma law required a defendant to use a peremptory to eliminate the prospective juror in order to preserve the claim that the ruling deprived him of a fair trial. Id. Even then, the error is grounds for reversal only if the defendant exhausts all peremptory challenges and an incompetent juror is forced upon him. Id. ś 86. The Court stated that because peremptory challenges are creatures of statute and are not required by the Constitution, it is for the State to determine the number of peremptory challenges allowed and to define their purpose and the manner of their exercise. Id. Only if the defendant does not receive that which state law provides is there a viable due process claim. Id. In a footnote, the Court said: We need not decide the broader question whether, in the absence of Oklahoma's limitation on the right to exercise peremptory challenges [requiring the defendant to use peremptories curatively], a denial or impairment of the exercise of peremptory challenges occurs if the defendant uses one or more challenges to remove jurors who should have been excused for cause. See Swain v. Alabama, 380 U.S. 202, 219, 85 S. Ct. 824, 835, 13 L. Ed. 2d 759 (1965); cf. Spies v. Illinois, 123 U.S. 131, 8 S. Ct. 21, 22, 31 L. Ed. 80 (1887); Stroud v. United States, 251 U.S. 380, 382, 40 S. Ct. 176, 177, 64 L. Ed. 317 (1920), denying rehearing to 251 U.S. 15, 40 S. Ct. 50, 64 L. Ed. 103 (1919). Id. at 91 n.4. ś 87. These statements opened the door to argument that impairment of state-created rights to peremptory challenges violated due process. The Court's footnote used the phrase a denial or impairment after it had quoted a sentence in Swain v. Alabama : The denial or impairment of the right is reversible error without a showing of prejudice. 380 U.S. at 219. The Ramos opinion also quoted this sentence, 211 Wis. 2d at 18, and that undoubtedly contributed to our failure to engage in harmless error analysis. Ramos relied heavily upon Ross and its quotation of Swain; the Ramos radix is the automatic reversal rule implied by Ross/Swain. ś 88. In Martinez-Salazar, the Supreme Court confronted, in a federal case, the very situation contemplated in footnote 4 of the Ross decision: the erroneous refusal of a trial judge to dismiss a potential juror for cause, followed by the defendant's exercise of a peremptory challenge to remove that juror. 528 U.S. at 307. That puts the case on a par with this case and Ramos. The Court stated its view on peremptory challenges directly: A hard choice is not the same as no choice. Martinez-Salazar, together with his codefendant, received and exercised 11 peremptory challenges (10 for the petit jury, one in selecting an alternate juror). That is all he is entitled to under the Rule. Id. at 315. ś 89. The Court thereafter stated: In choosing to remove [the prospective juror] rather than taking his chances on appeal, Martinez-Salazar did not lose a peremptory challenge. Rather, he used the challenge in line with a principal reason for peremptories: to help secure the constitutional guarantee of trial by an impartial jury. See, e.g., J.E.B. [v. Alabama ex rel. T.B., 511 U.S. 127, 137 n.8], 114 S. Ct. 1419 [(1994)], (purpose of peremptory challenges `is to permit litigants to assist the government in the selection of an impartial trier of fact') (quoting Edmonson v. Leesville Concrete Co., 500 U.S. 614, 620, 111 S. Ct. 2077, 114 L. Ed. 2d 660 (1991)); Georgia v. McCollum, 505 U.S. 42, 57, 112 S. Ct. 2348, 120 L. Ed. 2d 33 (1992) (peremptory challenges are one state-created means to the constitutional end of an impartial jury and a fair trial); Frazier v. United States, 335 U.S. 497, 505, 69 S. Ct. 201, 93 L. Ed. 187 (1948) (the right [to peremptory challenges] is given in aid of the party's interest to secure a fair and impartial jury). Id. at 315-16. [12] ś 90. The Court summarized its decision: We answer today the question left open in Ross and hold that a defendant's exercise of peremptory challenges... is not denied or impaired when the defendant chooses to use a peremptory challenge to remove a juror who should have been excused for cause. Id. at 317. [7] ś 91. The Martinez-Salazar opinion applies only to federal cases. It is not binding upon state courts. However, the Court's opinion settles the critical question whether the required use of a peremptory challenge to correct a trial court error is a denial or impairment of an important right. It is not a denial or impairment of a due process right unless a full complement of unencumbered peremptory challenges is required by state law. ś 92. The sentence in Swain v. Alabama may make good sense in the appropriate circumstances; that is, if a trial court repeatedly and deliberately misapplied the law in order to force petitioner to use his peremptory challenges to correct these errors, Ross, 487 U.S. at 91 n.5, or if there were a substantial impairment of the right to exercise peremptory challenges. Martinez-Salazar, 528 U.S. at 317 n.4. Swain in fact cited several 19th century cases that involved errors in jury selection, Lewis v. United States, 146 U.S. 370 (1892) (defendant not present during challenge process); Harrison v. United States, 163 U.S. 140 (1896) (defendant denied the number of peremptories to which he was entitled); Gulf, Colorado & Santa Fe Ry. Co. v. Shane, 157 U.S. 348 (1895) (defendant forced to exercise peremptories without having the entire pool from which to strike). Whether such errors would now require an automatic reversal under the federal or state constitutions â in light of the dramatic changes in harmless error review in this century [13] â is a question we need not answer in this case. See Martinez-Salazar, 528 U.S. at 317 n.4. This case does not involve the type of error present in those early cases. ś 93. As a result of the Supreme Court's decision in Martinez-Salazar, at least one other state court has changed its Ramos rule of automatic reversal, and other courts have discussed doing so. Shortly after the release of Martinez-Salazar, the Supreme Court of North Dakota abandoned its automatic reversal rule. Compare State v. Entzi, 615 N.W.2d 145, 149 (N.D. 2000) (adopting Martinez-Salazar approach and finding that curative use of a peremptory is not a violation of a statutory right) with City of Dickinson v. Lindstrom, 575 N.W.2d 440, 444 (N.D. 1998) (citing Swain for the rule that denial of a peremptory compels an automatic reversal). In addition, the Supreme Court of South Dakota recently decided a case in which it did not find a challenged juror was biased, but said: [W]ere we to find the trial court erred in failing to remove a potential juror for cause, we would still reject Moeller's argument that the failure to remove the challenged jurors forced him to exhaust his peremptory challenges. The United States Supreme Court recently held that if a defendant elects to cure the erroneous refusal of a trial judge to dismiss a potential juror for cause by exercising a peremptory challenge, and is subsequently convicted by a jury on which no biased juror sat, he has not been deprived of any right under the Federal Rules of Criminal Procedure or the Constitution. State v. Moeller, 616 N.W.2d 424, 441 n.8 (S.D. 2000) (commenting on Martinez-Salazar, 528 U.S. 304). [14] ś 94. Justice James E. Keller of the Supreme Court of Kentucky recently criticized his state's rule in Stopher v. Commonwealth, 2001 WL 431274, at , ___ S.W.3d ___ (Ky. 2001) (Keller, J., dissenting) (I am struck by the incongruity of these two conclusions â Stopher was tried by a fair and impartial jury, and I must vote to reverse. Accordingly, I believe this is an appropriate time to express my opinion that this Court should reconsider existing precedent decreeing that automatic reversible error exists whenever a trial court error implicates a defendant's exercise of peremptory challenges.); see also State v. Purcell, 18 P.3d 113, 117 n.2 (Ariz. Ct. App. 2001) (In light of our conclusion that the trial court did not err, we need not resolve the discrepancy between [ State v. Huerta, 855 P.2d 776, 777 (1993) (automatic reversal rule)] and Martinez-Salazar. ); Johnson v. State, 43 S.W.3d 1, 12 (Tex. Crim. App. 2001) (Hervey, J., dissenting) (citing Martinez-Salazar and arguing that a defendant is not deprived of any statutory right when he or she uses a peremptory curatively).