Opinion ID: 1342412
Heading Depth: 2
Heading Rank: 6

Heading: Recitation of List of Prospective Witnesses

Text: The Appellant claims that his due process rights were violated by the trial court's decision to permit defense counsel and the prosecutor to recite a list of prospective witnesses to the jury during voir dire. The Appellant asserts that trial strategy later changed and some of those witnesses were not called, possibly causing the jury to wonder why those witnesses had not appeared as witnesses at trial. The Appellant suggests that a more reasonable alternative would be to present the potential witness names to the court collectively, rather than permitting each attorney to read a list of names. In that manner, the jury would be prohibited from knowing which side planned to call a specific witness. The Appellant did not, however, object to the recitation of the list of names in the court below. Prior to the reading of the names, the trial court explained to the jury that it was now going to call upon the lawyers to identify their potential witnesses by name and by address. The trial court also informed the jury that the Defendant has no obligation to put on any witnesses and all these witnesses are potential witnesses only but we want to make sure no one is related.... The Appellant did not object [15] to the trial court's chosen method of reading the list to the jury, and this issue does not warrant application of the plain error rule. See State v. Miller, 194 W.Va. 3, 459 S.E.2d 114 (1995) (reserving plain error analysis for errors of great magnitude). The Appellant has not identified any specific prejudice which resulted from the manner in which the list of potential witnesses was read. We find that the Appellant's conjecture concerning the jury's speculation does not form the basis for a meritorious claim on appeal, and we find no reversible error by the trial court in the manner in which the potential witness list was presented to the jury.