Opinion ID: 2365781
Heading Depth: 1
Heading Rank: 1

Heading: Limitation of jury voir dire

Text: During the voir dire examination of the jury by the presiding Justice, counsel for the defendant sought to have the Justice inquire from the jury if any of them believed that a criminal act could be the result of mental disease or defect. The Court refused to do so, informing the defendant's counsel that he would inquire from the jury whether or not they would accept the law as given to them by the Court respecting criminal responsibility as a result of mental disease or defect. Asked to put the desired question in writing, counsel submitted the following: [Whether any of the jurors has] any preconceived notions or attitudes that dictate a criminal act cannot be prior to mental disease or defect. (Emphasis supplied) The Court refused to inquire in this particular form and noted counsel's objection to the refusal to do so. Notwithstanding the fact the thrust of the defendant's request most probably was, as conceded by the State, an intended inquiry of the jurors concerning any preconceived notion that a criminal act could not be the product of a mental disease or defect, the Justice's examination of the jury respecting their views on the defense of mental disease or defect was thereafter more than adequate to cover the area with which defense counsel was concerned, to which no further objections were lodged. Thus, even if we assume that the defendant's intended inquiry on jury voir dire was proper and that the Court should have posed to the jury the proffered question in the form everyone including the Court understood would carry out the defendant's objective, the defendant would not be entitled to a reversal in the instant case, because he failed to reassert his objection following the Court's full exploration of the defendant's suggested subject of inquiry with the jury. By tacitly accepting the Court's subsequent elaborate voir dire of the jury upon the very subject matter of his previously requested area of inquiry, the defendant did not preserve the issue for appellate review. Under Rule 24, M.R.Crim.P. the defendant was entitled to have additional questions addressed to prospective jurors only if the subject of inquiry had not been fully covered in the court's examination and was germane to the juror's qualifications. Pursuant to Rule 30(b), M.R.Crim.P. a party must renew his objection to a charge which omits seasonably submitted requested instructions under the pains of losing the issue as an appropriate subject of appellate review, except in the manifest error rule context. See State v. Thibodeau, 1976, Me., 353 A.2d 595, 605; State v. Boisvert, 1967, Me., 236 A.2d 419, 422. In State v. Gagne, 1975, Me., 349 A.2d 193, this Court ruled that the defendants' contention to the effect they could not be tried both for charges of high and aggravated assault and robbery arising out of a single set of circumstances was not saved as an issue on appeal, where they did not resurrect the issue by timely objection to the charge, even though the point had been raised prior to the empanelling of the jury. In State v. Weeks, 1970, Me., 270 A.2d 366, the clerk at the beginning of the trial partially read to the jury from a wrong indictment pending against the defendant. Weeks sought a reversal of his conviction on the ground that it was error for the trial judge not to instruct the jury to disregard the partial reading of the wrong indictment. Even though the defendant had not requested such an instruction at the end of the charge, he argued that the issue was, nevertheless, saved for appellate review, because it had originally been raised by a motion for mistrial immediately upon the clerk's mistake. This Court held otherwise. In the instant case, the defendant's counsel advised the Court that the jury as finally drawn was satisfactory, and this without equivocation. From this record, the defendant has failed to demonstrate reversible error as a result of the conduct of voir dire examination in the selection of the jury.