Opinion ID: 160217
Heading Depth: 3
Heading Rank: 2

Heading: Rehabilitation of Jurors Challenged for Cause

Text: 53 Hale next argues that trial counsel was ineffective because he failed to attempt to rehabilitate four jurors after the state challenged them for cause and the court dismissed them based upon their views regarding the death penalty. 54 The trial court asked the following question of all the jurors: If selected as a juror in a case where the law and the evidence warrant could you without doing violence to your conscious [sic] recommend the death penalty? The trial judge then went on to question individually those jurors who responded negatively about their views on the death penalty. These jurors included Jurors Fischer, Zinn, Abel, and Myer. In individual questioning, three of these jurors, Fischer, Zinn, and Meyer, stated unequivocally that they could not inflict the death penalty in any case. The fourth juror, Abel, stated that she could not apply the death penalty in this case regardless of the evidence because she knew Hale, his daughter, and his wife. These responses were repeated upon questioning by the state. 55 The Supreme Court in Wainwright v. Witt, 469 U.S. 412, 105 S. Ct. 844, 83 L. Ed. 2d 841 (1985), articulated the standard for determining whether a prospective juror must be excluded for cause because of his or her view on capital punishment as whether the juror's views would prevent or substantially impair the performance of his duties as a juror in accordance with his instructions and his oath. Id. at 424 (quotation marks omitted). A juror's bias need not be proven with unmistakable clarity because 56 determinations of juror bias cannot be reduced to question-and-answer sessions which obtain results in the manner of a catechism. . . . Despite this lack of clarity in the printed record, however, there will be situations where the trial judge is left with the definite impression that a prospective juror would be unable to faithfully and impartially apply the law. . . . [T]his is why deference must be paid to the trial judge who sees and hears the juror. 57 Id. at 424-26. 58 Thus, the state trial judge's determination is statutorily accorded a presumption of correctness which can only be rebutted by clear and convincing evidence. See 28 U.S.C. 2254(e)(1); see also Williams v. Collins, 16 F.3d 626, 633 (5th Cir. 1994). A review of the responses of the four jurors in this case indicates that the trial court did not improperly excuse them under Wainwright. All four jurors in question in this case made it clear, by the time both the trial judge and the prosecutor finished asking questions, that they could not impose the death penalty in this case regardless of the evidence or the facts presented. Based on their answers, the trial court could have been left with the definite impression that [Fischer, Abel, Meyer, and Zinn] would be unable to faithfully and impartially apply the law. See Wainwright, 469 U.S. at 426. Hale has produced no evidence to rebut the trial court's finding that the jurors should be removed for cause, and he has advanced no evidence to suggest that further cross-examination of these witnesses would have been helpful. Hence, we cannot find that Hale's counsel acted unreasonably or unprofessionally in failing to attempt to rehabilitate the four dismissed jurors. See Williams, 16 F.3d at 633 (holding that counsel was not ineffective for failing to rehabilitate three jurors excused for cause when their answers suggested they would not have been able to function properly as jurors in a capital case); Foster v. Delo, 39 F.3d 873, 878 (8th Cir. 1994) (finding counsel was not ineffective for failing to rehabilitate two jurors excused for cause when they answered unequivocally that they could not consider the death penalty regardless of the law or the evidence); see also Sawyer v. Butler, 848 F.2d 582, 589 (5th Cir. 1988) (denying an ineffective assistance claim and holding that there was no prejudice from counsel's failure to rehabilitate prospective jurors who stated they could not impose the death penalty when defendant failed to demonstrate rehabilitation was possible), aff'd on reh'g, 881 F.2d 1273 (5th Cir. 1989), aff'd sub nom. Sawyer v. Smith, 497 U.S. 227, 110 S. Ct. 2822, 111 L. Ed. 2d 193 (1990). 59