Opinion ID: 2281982
Heading Depth: 3
Heading Rank: 2

Heading: Randomness

Text: Appellant also claims that the trial court affected the randomness of the jury selection process by holding the ten members back until needed, so that their names would be drawn from last. The Commonwealth responds that because these prospective jury members were a part of the randomly selected pool the randomness is not affected. At first blush, Appellant's argument seems to have merit. By holding out the ten potential jurors so that their names were drawn upon last, it seems the trial court somewhat altered the randomness of the selection process. Indeed, we have considered the intentional nature of similar actions, particularly where a class of people has been purposefully excluded. See Partee v. Commonwealth, 652 S.W.2d 89 (Ky.1983). We also considered whether the trial court's behavior was intentional in Campbell, where we held that a prospective jury member inadvertently left out of the selection process may be added back to the panel, having been persuaded by the fact that there was no evidence that his name was left out as a result of an intentional act to reserve him for last. 260 S.W.3d at 798. Here, the trial court left the ten jurors out of the selection process until it exhausted its initial panel. Yet, given the meaning of the term randomness, we conclude it was not affected in this instance. In Williams v. Commonwealth, the Kentucky Court of Appeals defined randomness to mean at no time at all, will anyone involved be able to know in advance, or manipulate, the list of names who will eventually compose the empanelled jury. 734 S.W.2d 810, 812 (Ky.App.1987). We have previously endorsed that rule, and apply it here. See Hodge v. Commonwealth, 17 S.W.3d 824, 840 (Ky.2000); Wagers v. Commonwealth, No. 2001-SC-0807-MR, 2003 WL 21357605,  (Ky. June 12, 2003). However, by later adding the ten names to the panel when it needed them, the trial court did not create a situation where anyone would be able to know the names of the members that would eventually compose the jury. Those specific names were not pre-selected by the trial court. The ten jurors added near the end of the selection process had been randomly selected by the AOC, and had been previously serving on another jury panel with the other division of the circuit court. And once added, they were subsequently subjected to voir dire like all the other members. Far from analyzing this case based on statistics, we note that the court's actions did not give those ten jurors any better chance to serve on the panel than it would for additionally new jurors summoned as per RCr 9.30(1)(c)'s alternative methods of jury selection. Indeed, all of the ten members could have been stricken for cause, and may have never taken their seat on this jury had there been appropriate reasons. It appears to us that under normal circumstances where a trial court deliberately segregates a portion of the jury pool so as to intentionally manipulate the composition of the jury panel, such an action would give rise to error. However, we do not have that here. The motive behind the trial court's act of holding these jurors until they were actually needed was in response to Appellant's objection and on the chance that they would never be needed, not to intentionally alter the composition of the jury. For the abovementioned reasons, we hold that there was no reversible error in the jury selection process in this case.