Opinion ID: 170350
Heading Depth: 1
Heading Rank: 2

Heading: excusal of potential juror for cause under witherspoon-witt death-qualification standard[7]

Text: Fields contends that the district court erred in sustaining the government's challenge to a potential juror for cause based on his inability to properly consider imposition of the death penalty under the governing law. As explained below, given the extensive questioning of the potential juror and the district court's thorough and particularized consideration of the matter, including its assessment of the potential juror's credibility, we are convinced the court properly exercised its discretion in excusing the juror. The Supreme Court recently summarized the standards for assessing Witherspoon-Witt challenges in Uttecht v. Brown, ___ U.S. ___, 127 S.Ct. 2218, 167 L.Ed.2d 1014 (2007). The dispositive question is whether a potential juror is substantially impaired in his or her ability to impose the death penalty under the [governing legal] framework. Id. at 2224. The district court's ruling, based upon determinations of demeanor and credibility that are peculiarly within a trial judge's province, warrants deference even on direct review. Id. at 2223 (internal quotation marks omitted). And the district court is accorded broad discretion when there is lengthy questioning of a prospective juror and the trial court has supervised a diligent and thoughtful voir dire.  Id. at 2230. The excusal of a prospective juror must be affirmed unless the record discloses no basis for a finding of substantial impairment. Id. And when there is ambiguity in the prospective juror's statements, the trial court, aided as it undoubtedly [is] by its assessment of [the juror's] demeanor, [is] entitled to resolve it in favor of the State. Id. at 2223 (internal quotation marks omitted). Thus, the excusal of a potential juror may be upheld even in the absence of clear statements from the juror that he or she is impaired. Id. Indeed, even assurances that [the juror] would consider imposing the death penalty and would follow the law . . . d[o] not require the trial court to deny the State's motion to excuse, id. at 2229, if these responses were interspersed with more equivocal statements, id. at 2227. The potential juror here said he could not support the death penalty except in very extreme cases, a category of death-eligibility far more limited than that countenanced by the FDPA, as reflected in the instances the juror cited: genocide; torture; and willful killing of children. [8] R. Vol. 3 at 119, 122. Other than those cases, he stated that he would impose the death penalty only if specifically directed by law to do so. Id. at 119-20. Further questioning, by the government to bring out the potential juror's reservations about the death penalty and by the defense to defuse them, generated inconclusive, inconsistent, and/or ambiguous answers. Finally, the court explicitly asked him whether he could follow the court's instructions and approach the case on a clean slate separate from his personal moral criteria for the death penalty, or had a definite impression that his views would substantially impair his ability to follow the law. Id. at 127. He admitted he would be substantially impaired. [9] Id. Various interpretations of all this may be possible, but a reasonable one is that, aside from the exception drawn for genocide, torture, and willful killing of children, the potential juror would balk at a death sentence unless the law left him no discretion but mandated that it be imposed. That would certainly qualify him as substantially impaired in his ability to comply with a juror's responsibility under the FDPA, which (as the instructions in this case explicitly affirmed) never mandates the death penalty but, rather, requires jurors to exercise their discretion and decide for themselves whether the death penalty is warranted under the court's instructions. Finally, we note that the district court's explanation of its assessment of the matter, both when it excused the juror and when it denied a request to reconsider the matter and recall him, reflected its reliance on classic credibility observations. See id. at 129; R. Vol. 11 at 1690-92. Under the guiding principles from Uttecht noted at the outset, we affirm the district court's decision. The district court has discretion in such matters generally, and our affirmance of the particular ruling here is reinforced by the extensive individualized inquiry it conducted, the presence of ambiguities within its province to resolve, and its express reliance on its firsthand assessment of credibility. We see no basis for disturbing the district court's ruling.