Opinion ID: 1401773
Heading Depth: 2
Heading Rank: 3

Heading: peremptory challenges in kentucky courts.

Text: In concluding that the ineffective allocation of peremptory challenges to any party, civil or criminal, may be harmless error, the majority acts without due consideration for the significance with which Kentucky law and jurisprudence have regarded this right since the late 1700s. Initially, criminal defendants had a statutory right to twenty-four peremptory challenges if charged with treason and twenty if charged with murder or felony. Act of December 17, 1796, 1 William Littell, Statute Law of Kentucky (Littell's Laws), ch. 262, § 19, pp. 469-70 (1809). This right was broadened by statute to twenty peremptory challenges in all criminal cases whatsoever, except in courts where penal offensesthose subject only to pecuniary penaltywere prosecuted. [19] Act of December 22, 1798, 1 Littell's Laws, ch. 169, p. 236 (1810) (except in courts of quarterly sessions). During this time the prosecution was not entitled to any peremptory challenges. Act of December 17, 1796, 1 Littell's Laws, ch. 262, § 18, p. 469; Commonwealth v. Bailey, 30 Ky. (7 J.J. Marsh.) 246 (1832). However, this omission was substantially counterbalanced by the fact that, whereas a writ of error or an appeal could be taken to the Court of Appeals [20] from a civil or penal case, a writ of error or an appeal could not be taken from any other criminal case. Act of December 19, 1796, 1 Littell's Laws, ch. 277, § 13, p. 563 (no certiorari, appeal, supersedeas, or writ of error allowed from district court [21] judgments in criminal cases). The logic behind denying the right of appeal in serious criminal cases was simple: swift justice. [22] At first blush, the distinction between allowing appeals in penal cases but not in other criminal cases may have been because the accused in other criminal cases was allowed twenty peremptory challengesand was expected to use them to correct judicial error. The following language in Montee v. Commonwealth, 26 Ky. (3 J.J. Marsh.) 132 (1830), appears to support this position. It would seem, therefore, that the most safe and consistent conclusion, is, that the right of peremptorily challenging twenty, does not exist in penal cases, but is allowed, in all other criminal cases, and that the right to prosecute a writ of error, is given in a penal, but in no other criminal case. Id. at 144-45. However, while there had been no statutory right to peremptory challenges in trials of penal offenses (those tried in the courts of quarterly sessions), Montee also held that [a]n equitable and reasonable construction, will extend the same right of peremptory challenge, to `penal cases,' as that which is allowed in [civil] cases, i.e., the right to three peremptory challenges. Id. at 149. Thus the reason for a party's right to its allotted peremptory challenges could not have been because there was no right to appeal. In penal cases, the accused had both the right to peremptory challenges (albeit only three) and the right to appeal. Furthermore, in Pryor v. Commonwealth, 32 Ky. (2 Dana) 298 (1834), the court held that it was reversible error to deny the defendant three peremptory challenges in a penal case even though the defendant could prosecute a writ of error in such a case. Id. at 299. Sixteen years later, after the intervening enactment of a statute authorizing prosecution of a writ of error in any criminal case punishable by fine or by fine and imprisonment, Act of 1841, 3 Stat. Law 37, the court held that it was reversible error to deny a defendant twenty peremptory challenges in the trial of any criminal charge that could result in imprisonment. Hayden v. Commonwealth, 49 Ky. (10 B. Mon.) 125, 126 (1850). With respect to civil litigation, an Act of December 27, 1806, 3 Littell's Laws, ch. 397, § 1, p. 402 (1811), provided that each party litigant shall have the right of peremptory challenge to one fourth of the jury summoned. In Sodousky v. McGee, 27 Ky. (4 J.J. Marsh.) 267 (1830), a civil action for assault and battery, our predecessor court interpreted parties litigant to mean antagonistic sides of the controversy; thus, it was not error to deny separate peremptory challenges to nine nonantagonistic defendants. In Clarke v. Goode, 29 Ky. (6 J.J. Marsh.) 637 (1831), however, the Court held that it was reversible error to deny a civil litigant the right to exercise all three peremptory challenges allotted to him. It is not only important that justice should be impartially administered, but where it can be effected without the violation of any rule of propriety, that it should flow through channels as clear from suspicion as possible. Id. Thus, in our earliest jurisprudence, it was well established that a criminal defendant's or a civil litigant's right to the peremptory challenges allowed by law was inviolate. In 1854, the General Assembly officially adopted the first Criminal Code of Practice. M.C. Johnson et al., Code of Practice in Criminal Cases (eff. July 1, 1854). [23] Section 203 of the Code allotted to the defendant twenty peremptory challenges in a felony prosecution and three in a misdemeanor prosecution; section 204 allotted to the Commonwealth five peremptory challenges in a felony prosecution and three in a misdemeanor prosecution. Section 327 gave the Court of Appeals appellate jurisdiction over felony convictions, subject to the restrictions contained in this article. In that respect, Section 334 provided that a judgment of conviction of a felony could only be reversed on the following grounds: 1st An error of the court in admitting or rejecting important evidence. 2d An error in instructing or refusing to instruct the jury. 3d An error in failing to arrest the judgment. 4th An error in allowing or disallowing a peremptory challenge. (Emphasis added.) Section 349(1) specifically provided that an error in allowing or overruling a challenge for cause was not grounds for reversal. Section 276, which later became section 281, 1876 Ky. Acts (eff. January 1, 1877), Joshua F. Bullitt & John Feland, Code of Practice in Kentucky Criminal Cases 3, 52 (1876), provided that [t]he decision of the court on challenges to the panel, and for cause, shall not be subject to exception.  (Emphasis added.) In Moore v. Commonwealth, 70 Ky. (7 Bush) 191 (1870), our predecessor court held that section 334 of the Criminal Code precluded it from reviewing a trial court's allegedly erroneous failure to strike a juror for cause (oddly failing to also cite section 349(1)), rejecting an argument that the effect of the error was to disallow the appellant a peremptory challenge so as to authorize an appeal under section 334(4). Shortly thereafter, the General Assembly repealed section 349(1) and amended section 344 to read: A judgment of conviction shall be reversed for any error of law to the defendant's prejudice appearing of record. [24] Despite the General Assembly's obvious attempt to overrule Moore, our predecessor court consistently interpreted section 281, which precluded only exceptions to trial court decisions on challenges to the panel, and for cause, as precluding the right to appeal an erroneous failure to grant an excusal for cause. See, e.g., Conley v. Commonwealth, 225 Ky. 275, 8 S.W.2d 415, 417 (1928); Harris v. Commonwealth, 214 Ky. 787, 283 S.W. 1063, 1065 (1926); Lake v. Commonwealth, 209 Ky. 832, 273 S.W. 511, 512-13 (1925) (also holding that section 281 did not violate Section 11 of the Constitution of Kentucky); McKinzie v. Commonwealth, 193 Ky. 781, 237 S.W. 386, 387 (1922); Lawler v. Commonwealth, 182 Ky. 185, 206 S.W. 306, 309 (1918) (applying section 281 to deny review of prosecutor's admittedly improper advice to jurors during voir dire that, if convicted of murder, the defendant would be eligible for parole in eight years); Barnes v. Commonwealth, 70 S.W. 827, 828 (Ky.1902); Gilbert v. Commonwealth, 51 S.W. 590, 590-91 (Ky.1899); Burton v. Commonwealth, 11 Ky. Op. 841 (1882); Rutherford v. Commonwealth, 76 Ky. (13 Bush) 608, 609-10 (1878). Several of these opinions noted in passing that the trial court's erroneous failure to excuse a juror for cause could not have been prejudicial because the defendant failed to show that he had exhausted all of his peremptory challenges. Conley, 8 S.W.2d at 417; Lake, 273 S.W. at 513; Gilbert, 51 S.W. at 591. That was the harmless error rule prevailing in civil cases to which, of course, section 281 of the Criminal Code did not apply. Day's Comm. v. Exch. Bank of Ky., 116 S.W. 259, 259-60 (Ky.1909). In 1932, the General Assembly once again attempted to make the erroneous denial of challenges for cause appealable, this time amending section 281 to read: The decision of the court upon challenges, and for cause, or upon motions to set aside the indictment, shall be subject to exception.  1932 Ky. Acts, ch. 63, § 2 (emphasis added). Shortly thereafter, our predecessor court held that it would find the erroneous failure to excuse a juror for cause to be harmless unless the juror actually served on the case or the defendant excused the juror peremptorily and exhausted all of his or her peremptory challenges in the process. Tate v. Commonwealth, 258 Ky. 685, 80 S.W.2d 817, 820 (1935). Except for some unfortunate dictum in Turpin v. Commonwealth, 780 S.W.2d 619, 621 (Ky.1989), and a short-lived holding in Dunbar v. Commonwealth, 809 S.W.2d 852, 853 (Ky.1991), that was premised upon the absence of a Constitutional guarantee of peremptory strikes (a holding that was quickly rejected in Thomas, 864 S.W.2d at 258-60, as an incorrect interpretation of Ross v. Oklahoma ), we and our predecessor court have consistently applied the rule announced in Tate during the ensuing seventy years. Derossett v. Commonwealth, 867 S.W.2d 195, 197 (Ky.1993); Smith v. Commonwealth, 734 S.W.2d 437, 444 (Ky.1987); Lefevers v. Commonwealth, 558 S.W.2d 585, 587-88 (Ky.1977); Rigsby v. Commonwealth, 495 S.W.2d 795, 798-99 (Ky.1973), overruled on other grounds by Pendleton v. Commonwealth, 685 S.W.2d 549, 552 (Ky.1985); Jones v. Commonwealth, 281 S.W.2d 920, 925 (Ky.1955); Messer v. Commonwealth, 297 Ky. 772, 181 S.W.2d 438, 440 (1944). The same rule also applies in civil cases. Commonwealth, Dep't. of Highways v. Ginsburg, 516 S.W.2d 868, 870-71 (Ky. 1974); Carrithers v. Jean's Ex'r, 249 Ky. 695, 61 S.W.2d 323, 325 (1933); Day's Comm., 116 S.W. at 259-60. Conversely, our courts also have consistently held that the erroneous denial of a challenge for cause is prejudicial and requires reversal for a new trial if the defendant used a peremptory challenge to excuse the juror and exhausted all of his or her peremptory challenges in the process. Fugate v. Commonwealth, 993 S.W.2d 931, 938 (Ky.1999); Thomas, 864 S.W.2d at 259; Thompson v. Commonwealth, 862 S.W.2d 871, 874-75 (Ky.1993) (death penalty case), overruled on other grounds by St. Clair v. Commonwealth, 140 S.W.3d 510, 570 (Ky. 2004), superseded by rule on other grounds as recognized by Perdue v. Commonwealth, 916 S.W.2d 148, 159 (Ky.1995); Alexander v. Commonwealth, 862 S.W.2d 856, 864-65 (Ky.1993), overruled on other grounds by Stringer v. Commonwealth, 956 S.W.2d 883, 891 (Ky.1997); Montgomery v. Commonwealth, 819 S.W.2d 713, 717-18 (Ky.1991); Morris v. Commonwealth, 766 S.W.2d 58, 60 (Ky.1989) (failure to excuse for cause jurors who would only consider the death penalty); Grooms v. Commonwealth, 756 S.W.2d 131, 138 (Ky.1988) (failure to excuse for cause juror who would not consider full range of penalties); Marsch v. Commonwealth, 743 S.W.2d 830, 831 (Ky.1987); Brumfield v. Commonwealth, 374 S.W.2d 499, 500 (Ky. 1964) (some jurors who should have been excused for cause actually served because defendant exhausted his peremptory challenges on other jurors who also should have been excused for cause); Tayloe v. Commonwealth, 335 S.W.2d 556, 557 (Ky. 1960) (same); Calvert v. Commonwealth, 708 S.W.2d 121, 123 (Ky.App.1986); Godsey v. Commonwealth, 661 S.W.2d 2, 4-5 (Ky.App.1983). The same rule has also been applied in civil cases, now governed by CR 47.03. Bowman ex rel. Bowman v. Perkins, 135 S.W.3d 399, 402 (Ky.2004) (plurality opinion); Conner v. Denney, 521 S.W.2d 514, 515 (Ky.1975); Davenport v. Ephraim McDowell Hosp., 769 S.W.2d 56, 59 (Ky. App.1988) (reversing without specifically reporting that the aggrieved party exhausted all peremptoriesif not, then holding that erroneous denial of challenge for cause is reversible error even if litigant failed to exhaust all peremptories). Ginsburg, 516 S.W.2d at 870-71, Carrithers, 61 S.W.2d at 323, and Day's Committee, 116 S.W. at 259-60, also clearly implied that such would have been the result had the party exhausted all peremptory challenges. We and our predecessor court have long held that the right to have peremptory challenges allotted according to law in a civil case is a substantial right. See, e.g., Bowling Green Mun. Utils. v. Atmos Energy Corp., 989 S.W.2d 577, 580 (Ky.1999); Ky. Farm Bureau Mut. Ins. Co. v. Cook, 590 S.W.2d 875, 877 (Ky.1979); Eads v. Stockdale, 310 Ky. 446, 220 S.W.2d 971, 972 (1949); Olympic Realty Co. v. Kamer, 283 Ky. 432, 141 S.W.2d 293, 297 (1940); Drury v. Franke, 247 Ky. 758, 57 S.W.2d 969, 984-85 (1933); Pendly v. Ill. Cent. R.R. Co., 92 S.W. 1, 2 (Ky.1906) (When they were permitted to remove six jurors, a substantial right of the appellant was taken from her.). Thus, our courts have consistently held that the denial or misallocation of peremptory challenges, when properly preserved, is per se reversible error. [W]hen the error is properly preserved, reversal and a new trial should be awarded as a matter of law. Cook, 590 S.W.2d at 877. This has been the law of Kentucky in both civil and criminal cases since 1834. Atmos Energy, 989 S.W.2d at 580 (Violations of CR 47.03, in order to be subject to appellate reversal, need not show actual prejudice. A simple violation suffices.); Wells v. Conley, 384 S.W.2d 496, 498 (Ky. 1964); Roberts v. Taylor, 339 S.W.2d 653, 656 (Ky.1960); Price v. Bates, 320 S.W.2d 786, 788 (Ky.1959); Williams v. Whitaker, 293 S.W.2d 627, 628 (Ky.1956); Pendly, 92 S.W. at 2; Hayden, 49 Ky. (10 B. Mon.) at 126; Pryor, 32 Ky. (2 Dana) at 298; Clarke, 29 Ky. (6 J.J. Marsh.) at 638; Davenport, 769 S.W.2d at 59 (Granting the two non-antagonistic appellees six peremptory strikes was reversible error as a matter of law.). When the right of challenge is lost or impaired, the statutory conditions and terms for setting up an authorized jury are not met; the right to challenge a given number of jurors without showing cause is one of the most important rights to a litigant; any system for the empaneling of a jury that prevents or embarrasses the full, unrestricted exercise of the right of challenge must be condemned; ... the right to reject jurors by peremptory challenge is material in its tendency to give the parties assurance of the fairness of a trial in a valuable and effective way; the terms of the statutes with reference to peremptory challenges are substantial rather than technical; such rules, as aiding to secure an impartial, or avoid a partial, jury, are to be fully enforced; . . . next to securing a fair and impartial trial for parties, it is important that they should feel that they have had such a trial, and anything that tends to impair their belief in this respect must seriously diminish their confidence and that of the public generally in the ability of the state to provide impartial tribunals for dispensing justice between its subjects. Drury v. Franke, 247 Ky. 758, 57 S.W.2d 969, 984 (1933) (emphasis added) (applying rule to prospective juror's failure to respond to voir dire question, thus precluding litigant from opportunity to excuse juror by peremptory challenge). The United States Supreme Court has also recognized that some errors at trial cannot be analyzed under the harmless error standard. In Fulminante [Arizona v. Fulminante, 499 U.S. 279, 111 S.Ct. 1246, 113 L.Ed.2d 302 (1991) ], we distinguished between, on the one hand, structural defects in the constitution of the trial mechanism, which defy analysis by `harmless-error' standards, 499 U.S., at 309, 111 S.Ct., at 1265, and, on the other hand, trial errors which occur during the presentation of the case to the jury, and which may therefore be quantitatively assessed in the context of other evidence presented, id., at 307-308, 111 S.Ct., at 1252, 1264. Sullivan v. Louisiana, 508 U.S. 275, 281, 113 S.Ct. 2078, 2082-83, 124 L.Ed.2d 182 (1993). In other words, errors which occur during the presentation of the case to the jury can be evaluated for prejudicial effect by examining whether the introduction of other evidence diminished the gravity of the error. However, errors in the structure of the trial, such as allotting a party fewer peremptory challenges than allowed by law, defy such analysis. [25] When the State has more peremptory challenges than the accused, the State has an unmistakable tactical advantage and the impartiality of the jury is compromised. Errors which affect the impartiality of the jury are, by definition, structural and require reversal. State v. Good, 309 Mont. 113, 43 P.3d 948, 961 (2002). If Appellant had been able to use the wasted peremptory challenge to excuse another objectionable (to him) juror, thus changing the composition of the jury, would the outcome have been more favorable to himeither with respect to guilt or punishment? That type of issue is incapable of proof, thus unsusceptible to harmless error analysis. The requirement of a showing of actual prejudice effectively nullifies the requirements of the rule on allocation of peremptory challenges. To show actual prejudice, the complaining litigant would be required to discover the unknowable and to reconstruct what might have been and never was, a jury properly constituted after running the gauntlet of challenge performed in accordance with the prescribed rule of the game. Cook, 590 S.W.2d at 877. In other words, proving prejudice from the loss of a peremptory strike is like ignis fatuus, a will o' the wisp incapable of proof. Sand Hill Energy, supra note 16, at 510 (Cooper, J., dissenting). As noted in the majority opinion, the number of peremptory challenges allotted to criminal defendants in felony cases in Kentucky has gradually diminished vis-à-vis those granted to the prosecution: from the original twenty for the defense and none for the prosecution prior to 1854, to twenty and five from 1854 until 1893, Johnson et al., supra , §§ 203, 204; to fifteen and five from 1893 to 1978, John D. Carroll, Code of Practice in Criminal Cases §§ 203, 204 (1893); 1962 Ky. Acts, ch. 234, § 0, Rule 9.40; to eight and five from 1978 to 1994, RCr 9.40(1); Order Amending Rules, Administrative Procedures of the Court of Justice, Part II, Jury Selection and Management, at 20 (eff.Jan. 1, 1978); and finally to eight and eight, until today. RCr 9.40(1); Order Amending Rules of Civil Procedure (CR), Rules of Criminal Procedure (RCr), Rules of Supreme Court (SCR), 94-1, at 8 (eff.Oct. 1, 1994). That does not mean that entitlement to the number allotted by law is no longer a substantial right. It only means that the General Assembly and, subsequently, this Court have gradually recognized that in criminal cases, as has always been true in civil cases, there should be a level playing field between prosecution and defense. The purpose of specifically limiting and allocating peremptory strikes by statute or rule is so one side cannot unfairly stack the deck against the other. Holland v. Illinois, 493 U.S. 474, 481, 110 S.Ct. 803, 807-08, 107 L.Ed.2d 905 (1990). [I]f one party is allowed more peremptory challenges than the other, he is in effect, given an advantage in that he may select by indirection particular veniremen to try his cause. Williams v. Pichard, 150 Fla. 371, 7 So.2d 468 (1942). It is particularly egregious to place a criminal defendant at such a disadvantage. Between him and the state the scales are to be evenly held. Hayes v. Missouri, 120 U.S. 68, 70, 7 S.Ct. 350, 351, 30 L.Ed. 578 (1887). No longer. Because of our decision today, peremptory challenges in both civil and criminal trials can be allocated at the whim of trial judges, who can control their allotment either by refusing to grant challenges for cause and thereby forcing the aggrieved party to waste his/her/its peremptory strikes on jurors who should have been excused for cause, or by simply misallocating the peremptory challenges by awarding a party more than or less than the number allowed by law. Either action will be deemed harmless error unless that aggrieved party can prove that a biased juror actually sat on the casean improbable feat. Providing an accused with the right to be tried by a jury of his peers gave him an inestimable safeguard... against the compliant, biased, or eccentric judge. Duncan v. Louisiana, 391 U.S. 145, 156, 88 S.Ct. 1444, 1451, 20 L.Ed.2d 491 (1968). Every experienced trial lawyer has a war story about a local judge who took care of his `home folks.' We were required to reverse Atmos Energy, a case involving multiple plaintiffs with identical interests and multiple defendants with antagonistic interests, because the trial judge equalized the peremptory strikes as a matter of fairness. 989 S.W.2d at 579. After today, such whimsical rulings will be deemed harmless error. What if the trial judge is a former prosecutor whose mind-set has not yet switched to neutral, so he ignores the mandate of Montgomery v. Commonwealth, 819 S.W.2d at 718, that trial judges remove [the `magic question'] from their thinking and strike it from their lexicon, and requires a defendant to use peremptory challenges to excuse one or more rehabilitated jurors whom Montgomery would require to be excused for cause? [26] Harmless error. If one of an accused's peremptory challenges could be taken away from him, why not five be taken, and if five, why not ten, leaving none .... Johnson v. State, 43 S.W.3d 1, 6 (Tex. Crim.App.2001) (quoting Wolfe v. State, 147 Tex.Crim. 62, 178 S.W.2d 274, 279-80 (1944)). To permit peremptory strikes to be allocated arbitrarily and inconsistently on a case-by-case, court-by-court basis would be intolerable. It would be better to abolish peremptory strikes than to permit them to become ... the tool of judicial arbitrariness. Sand Hill, 83 S.W.3d at 512 (Cooper, J., dissenting).