Opinion ID: 20143
Heading Depth: 2
Heading Rank: 3

Heading: limitation of voir dire regarding special issue one

Text: 34 Soria argues that his rights to a fair trial and an impartial jury under the Sixth and Fourteenth Amendments were violated by the trial court's refusal to allow Soria to question venire member Pollard regarding his views on the first special issue at the punishment phase. In reviewing claims challenging the trial court's limitations on voir dire, we are limited, of course, to such limitations that rise to the level of a constitutional violation. Herman v. Johnson, 98 F.3d 171, 174 (5th Cir. 1996). Trial judges are afforded much latitude in determining how voir dire should be conducted. Id. 35 Specifically, Soria attempted to ascertain whether venire member Pollard thought that a finding of intentional conduct at the guilt phase would automatically satisfy the requirement in special issue one that the conduct was committed with the reasonable expectation that the death of the deceased or another would result. 9 As such, Soria argues, the limitation on voir dire deprived him of the ability to determine whether the venire member could follow the law and whether the venire member was excusable for cause, as well as the ability to intelligently exercise a peremptory challenge. 36 We addressed a very similar claim in Herman, 98 F.3d at 174. In that case, during voir dire, the trial court refused to inform the petitioner which instruction regarding the evaluation of mitigating evidence would be given to the jurors at the penalty phase. This Court stated that the trial court was soundly within his discretion when he refused to allow detailed questioning of veniremen on the legal standard they would use to evaluate mitigating evidence. Id. We are persuaded that Soria's inquiry--whether intentional conduct automatically satisfies the latter part of the first special issue--falls into the same category as the questioning in Herman. Thus, we believe that the trial court's refusal to allow Soria to make that inquiry was well within its discretion. 37 Moreover, Soria exercised a peremptory challenge against Pollard. In Ross v. Oklahoma, 487 U.S. 81, 108 S.Ct. 2273, 2278 (1988), the Supreme Court held that a trial court's refusal to remove a biased venire member for cause did not violate the defendant's Sixth Amendment right to an impartial jury because he exercised a peremptory strike against the challenged venire member. The Court explained that [s]o 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. Id. As such, because Pollard did not sit on Soria's jury, Soria is precluded from makinga substantial showing of the denial of a federal right with respect to this claim.