Opinion ID: 2332719
Heading Depth: 1
Heading Rank: 1

Heading: limitations on voir dire examination

Text: In Lockett v. Ohio, [2] the United States Supreme Court recognized that the death penalty is qualitatively different from a sentence of imprisonment [3] and held that individualized consideration of the circumstances of a capital crime and the character of the defendant who committed that crime were critical to prevent its arbitrary application. [4] Although the Sixth Amendment to the United States Constitution does not require that a jury make the ultimate determination whether to impose the death penalty, [5] the United States Supreme Court has held that, when juries are asked to deliberate capital punishment, Fourteenth Amendment due process protections require that those juries be comprised of fair and impartial jurors. [6] Two of the most important facets of such impartiality are a knowing and informed ability to consider the full range of punishments [7] and the ability to consider all relevant mitigation evidence. [8] In Rosales-Lopez v. United States, [9] the United States Supreme Court observed that a full and adequate voir dire plays a critical function in assuring the criminal defendant that his ... right to an impartial jury will be honored. [10] This Court has reached the same conclusion. [11] However, [d]espite its importance, the adequacy of voir dire is not easily subject to appellate review. [12] Nonetheless, the United States Supreme Court has conceptualized its review of voir dire adequacy as a situational inquiry and has articulated a standard under which appellate courts should evaluate an examination's sufficiency: Questions ... might be helpful in ascertaining whether a juror is impartial. To be constitutionally compelled, however, it is not enough that such questions be helpful. Rather the trial court's failure to ask these questions must render the defendant's trial fundamentally unfair. [13] The Supreme Court has applied this standard in a number of cases in which trial courts limited the subject matter of voir dire examination and, by way of example, has concluded that voir dire regarding the subject of racial prejudice is required in capital cases when requested by the defense, [14] but is required in non-capital cases only when racial issues were `inextricably bound up with the conduct of the trial,'' [15] and that there is no constitutional right to question prospective jurors regarding their opinions about a defendant's facial hair [16] or to permit specific inquiry into the content of pretrial publicity to which potential jurors were exposed. [17] The Supreme Court has also cautioned, however, that a voir dire examination which addressed all relevant subject matter might still fail to pass constitutional muster if the trial court relies on vague, can you follow the law? questions which leave jurors' actual preconceptions unprobed. [18] The Court has emphasized that some degree of deference to trial courts is necessary because determinations of juror bias cannot be reduced to question-and-answer sessions which obtain results in the matter of catechism. [19] At the same time, however, courts must remain sensitive to the fact that dissonance can exist between the questioner and prospective jurors because of asymmetrical understandings of legal language and concepts. [20] In the case at bar, Appellant wished to examine potential jurors to see if they could consider the full range of penaltiesincluding the statutory minimum penalty of twenty (20) years. The trial court, however, would not allow Appellant to ask prospective jurors if they could consider the minimum penalty and instead framed the inquiry regarding the low end of the penalty range as whether a jury could consider a term of imprisonment of not less than twenty years. Of course, an affirmative answer to this question only meant that the juror could consider sentencing Appellant to imprisonment for some term of yearsperhaps fifty (50), or a hundred (100) or even a thousand (1000) yearsnot that the juror could consider the statutory minimum sentence. This Court has consistently held that a defendant is entitled to a jury that can fairly consider the entire range of punishments for his crimes. [21] And, in Grooms v. Commonwealth , [22] we held that a juror should be excused for cause if he would be unable in any case ... to consider the imposition of the minimum penalty prescribed by law. [23] Recently, in Lawson v. Commonwealth , [24] we examined how voir dire regarding the available penalty range should be conducted in non-capital cases and concluded, based on our estimation of the significant opportunity costs [of] overgeneralizing the inquiry [25] that, the questioner should define the penalty range in terms of the possible minimum and maximum sentences[.] [26] I can envision no reason for a different rule regarding voir dire examination as to the minimum penalty in capital cases where the stakes are far greater. Because the voir dire examination permitted in this case did not allow the trial court or the parties to assess whether the jurors could consider the statutory minimum punishment of twenty (20) years, Appellant was denied the right to meaningful voir dire on the issue of punishment. [27] With respect to Appellant's allegation that the trial court unconstitutionally limited the scope of his voir dire examination by prohibiting him from inquiring whether prospective jurors could consider the fact that Appellant was under the influence of drugs and alcohol as a mitigating circumstance, [28] I acknowledge that, in Woodall v. Commonwealth , [29] this Court held that it was not an abuse of discretion by the trial judge to restrict the voir dire ... concerning specific mitigation evidence. [30] However, I did not agree with that holding then, [31] and I do not agree with the citation-free, conclusory declaration in today's majority opinion that the trial court properly curtailed questions that were not proper and only confused the panel. [32] Although Appellant persuasively argues that evidence of intoxication is a double-edged sword that some jurors will interpret as heightening rather than reducing a defendant's culpability, the trial court would not allow Appellant to seek out those jurors with more specific questioning, and instead merely allowed examination as to whether jurors could consider undefined mitigating circumstances. As each juror's answer to this question would vary according to his or her own conception of what possible mitigating circumstances may exist, I have little confidence that this question reached the heart of the relevant inquirywhether the jurors could consider a mitigating circumstance specifically authorized by the General Assembly and that Appellant presented in this case. While the basis for the holding in Woodall was that the examination as to the specific mitigating circumstance was designed to oblige jurors to commit themselves by either accepting a specific mitigator or rejecting it before any evidence was heard, [33] here, Appellant's proposed question sought only to determine if prospective jurors could consider intoxication as a mitigating circumstance. As Appellant thus sought no more than the United States Constitution guarantees himfair and impartial jurors who could consider his relevant mitigation evidence [34] I believe the trial court denied Appellant a constitutionally adequate voir dire examination by prohibiting such questioning. Although I believe the erroneous limitation of Appellant's voir dire would require reversal of Appellant's death sentence even if the trial court had not otherwise committed reversible error during the capital sentencing phase, the court's failure to instruct the jury as to LWOP renders the voir dire error largely moot. Upon remand, however, I would direct the trial court not only to properly instruct the jury as to all available sentencing options, but also to permit Appellant to conduct a constitutionally adequate voir dire.