Opinion ID: 2072259
Heading Depth: 3
Heading Rank: 1

Heading: Allowing Evans to Sit on the Jury

Text: During voir dire, defense counsel failed to challenge Matthew Evans, a police officer, for cause or to exercise a peremptory challenge against Evans. Defendant characterizes this decision as incredible. Defendant alleges that Evans' status as a police officer could have created a bias in favor of the police witnesses who testified for the State. Evans, however, stated during voir dire that he could treat police witnesses the same as any other witnesses. Evans was also a suburban police officer. The officers who testified for the State served in Chicago. Defense counsel exercised a peremptory challenge against Lamar Minor, the only potential juror questioned who was a Chicago police officer, showing that defense counsel distinguished between the two prospective jurors. As a preliminary matter, defendant would have us adopt the position that the defense's acceptance of a police officer as a juror in any case, without more, constitutes ineffective assistance of counsel. We cannot accept this point. Defendant also asserts that defense counsel should have peremptorily challenged Evans because Evans would be able to discern, based on the testimony of Garrity, that defendant took a polygraph examination. Defendant argues that it was the State's improper conduct which alerted Evans to the fact that defendant was given a polygraph examination. Ineffective assistance is judged at the time of the attorney's conduct. ( Strickland, 466 U.S. at 690, 104 S.Ct. at 2066, 80 L.Ed.2d at 695.) Defense counsel could not anticipate improper conduct by the State. Even if we were to accept defendant's interpretation of the facts, therefore, defense counsel would not have been ineffective for failing to excuse Evans on this ground at the time the jury was chosen.