Opinion ID: 2159212
Heading Depth: 3
Heading Rank: 2

Heading: Excusal for Cause of Jurors Who Read or Heard about the Case

Text: Defendant claims that this case is unlike State v. Biegenwald, supra, 106 N.J. 13, in that so many of the jurors here read or heard about the case. In State v. Biegenwald , the sixteen impanelled jurors indicated that they had encountered little or no publicity regarding the case.... [A] substantial segment of the jury panel ... unequivocally and credibly demonstrated that the pretrial publicity had passed them by, and, thus, this Court was satisfied that the jury that was impanelled was as a whole impartial. Id. at 36. The Biegenwald jury, like the jury in this case, did not include anyone who recalled having previously read anything about other murders or a prior murder conviction. Id. at 37. After reviewing the jurors' questionnaires and after examining them extensively on voir dire, the court did in fact qualify as final deliberating jurors some veniremen who recalled reading or hearing about defendant in the papers or television but who remembered little or nothing about the defendant. Jurors who did recall some of the details reported in media accounts did not recall anything regarding the defendant's prior murder conviction and his indictment for the O'Brien murder. Their recollection of the factual circumstances of the murder and of the defendant was slight. It is important to recall that in State v. Biegenwald one of the impanelled jurors knew of defendant's alleged prior murders but not of his prior conviction. She apparently learned of the prior murders from other veniremen. Yet, the trial court and the defense were convinced by her voir dire that she could disregard what she had heard and could serve impartially. We affirmed that conclusion by finding that the final Biegenwald jury was an impartial and fair one. Id. at 37. The fact that those jurors who admitted exposure recalled nothing regarding this defendant's prior murder convictions and his indictment in the O'Brien matter, coupled with their assurances of impartiality, persuades us to reach the same conclusion we reached in State v. Biegenwald , namely, that defendant was tried by a fair and impartial jury. Implicit in defendant's contention that the trial court should have excluded for cause any juror who read or heard about the case is the notion that voir dire is an ineffective means of determining juror prejudice under such circumstances. Defendant thus suggests that we adopt a rule whereby any juror who has heard or read about the case would be automatically disqualified regardless of the extent of his or her recollection. We decline to adopt such a rule for which we find no support in this or any other jurisdiction. In fact, such a rule would be inconsistent with long-established precedent holding that acceptable jurors need not be entirely ignorant of the matter at hand. See Murphy v. Florida, supra, 421 U.S. at 799-800, 95 S.Ct. at 2035-36, 44 L.Ed. 2d at 594-95 (Qualified jurors need not ... be totally ignorant of the facts and issues.); Irvin v. Dowd, supra, 366 U.S. at 722-23, 81 S.Ct. at 1642, 6 L.Ed. 2d at 756 (rejecting proposition that any preconceived notion as to guilt or innocence of an accused is sufficient to disqualify prospective juror); State v. Allen, 73 N.J. 132, 161 n. 8 (1977) (Pashman, J., concurring) (juror who has seen news reports should not automatically be excused for cause); State v. VanDuyne, supra, 43 N.J. at 385-87; see also Smith v. Phillips, 455 U.S. 209, 217, 102 S.Ct. 940, 946, 71 L.Ed. 2d 78, 86 (1982) (due process does not require a new trial every time a juror has been placed in a potentially compromising situation). As we mentioned earlier, [i]t is sufficient if the juror can lay aside his impression or opinion and render a verdict based on the evidence presented in court. Irvin v. Dowd, supra, 366 U.S. at 722-23, 81 S.Ct. at 1642, 6 L.Ed. 2d at 756.