Opinion ID: 2246592
Heading Depth: 1
Heading Rank: 15

Heading: Venire Member Questioning; Parole Law

Text: Defendant's fourteenth argument in this appeal states that the trial court violated his eighth and fourteenth amendment rights by not allowing questioning of prospective jurors during voir dire concerning any preconceived notions they might have regarding Illinois parole law. Defendant sought this inquiry to determine if potential jury members had fears that if the defendant was not executed he would soon be released from prison. Defendant argues that a requirement of such voir dire questioning follows logically from People v. Gacho (1988), 122 Ill.2d 221, 119 Ill.Dec. 287, 522 N.E.2d 1146, which held that the jury must be instructed following a sentencing hearing that life imprisonment without the possibility of parole is the only alternative to the death sentence. We decline to extend the ruling in Gacho this far. The court refused to pose these questions to the prospective jurors in the present case because it found that such an inquiry was not relevant to their capacity to serve as jurors, and that the jurors might become confused by such questioning. The scope of permissible questioning during voir dire is properly determined by the sound discretion of the trial court. ( People v. Morgan (1986), 112 Ill.2d 111, 129, 97 Ill.Dec. 430, 492 N.E.2d 1303.) We cannot find here that the trial court abused its discretion. The questioning that defense counsel sought to pose to the potential jurors would provide little help in deciding how to exercise defendant's peremptory challenges, but had a potential to confuse the members of the panel. We note that a Federal court of appeals that addressed this same argument termed it technical to the point of absurdity. ( King v. Lynaugh (5th Cir.1988), 850 F.2d 1055, 1058.) We are similarly unimpressed.