Opinion ID: 1771982
Heading Depth: 1
Heading Rank: 1

Heading: did the prosecutor improperly extract from each prospective juror a pledge or promise as to the verdict each would render during voir dire?

Text: The prosecutor asked at least eighteen individual jurors whether or not they would or will vote guilty if the state proved its case against Jessie Derrell Williams, and whether or not the jurors would or will vote for death if the state proved that the aggravating circumstances outweighed the mitigating circumstances. Williams urges that such questions were in direct violation of our Uniform Criminal Rules of Circuit Court, Rule 5.02, the text of which reads: In the voir dire examination of jurors, the attorney shall direct to the entire venire questions only on matters not inquired into by the court. Individual jurors may be examined only when proper to inquire as to answers given or for other good cause allowed by the court. No hypothetical questions requiring any juror to pledge a particular verdict will be asked. (emphasis added) After repeated objections, the first of which was overruled, the trial judge then instructed the prosecutor to offer a complete and accurate statement of the law if he insisted on posing that question. Despite this admonition, the prosecutor continued with the same form of question at which time the trial judge directed the district attorney to use the verb could as opposed to the verb would. Again the district attorney continued with the same form of the question. Another objection was entered by Williams which was overruled, and the district attorney continued with the would form of the question through six more jurors. We have repeatedly admonished district attorneys that their examination during voir dire should be abstract as opposed to what the juror might or might not do in the particular case at bar. Murphy v. State, 246 So.2d 920, 921 (Miss. 1971); McCaskill v. State, 227 So.2d 847, 852 (Miss. 1969) (reversed on other grounds); Phenizee v. State, 180 Miss. 746, 178 So. 579, 582 (1938). In Phenizee, Justice Griffith explained: The examination on the question we are here considering should be in the abstract as to the class of cases, one of which is about to be tried; not what the juror or jury might or might not do in a particular case then and there at bar. It is time enough for the district attorney, in the particular case, to call for the death penalty in his argument on the merits after the jury has heard all of the evidence, and can better judge of the weight of that argument and of the justification of the demand for the death penalty, rather than it shall be emphasized upon the voir dire. 178 So. at 582. Judge Griffith went on to note however: We have concluded that, in the light of the matters last mentioned, a jury of fair intelligence, as we must presume this jury was, could not have understood otherwise than that the penalty, whether of death or of life imprisonment, was solely for them to determine, and that no official of the state had a right to dictate to them about it or to do more than submit to the judgment of the jury on that question.... Thus, in this case we think we may safely rest on the conclusion that this jury was neither misled nor wrongfully or unduly influenced by what happened on the voir dire, particularly in view of the evidence on the merits which so strongly justified the extreme penalty. 178 So. at 582. The trial court's discretion in passing upon the extent and propriety of questions addressed to prospective jurors is not unlimited and this Court will take note of abuse on appeal where prejudice to the accused is present. Jones v. State, 381 So.2d 983, 990 (Miss. 1980); McCaskill v. State, 227 So.2d 847, 852 (Miss. 1969); Leverett v. State, 112 Miss. 394, 404, 73 So. 273 (1916). A comparison of the abuses found in Leverett which led to reversal with the statements made by the district attorney in the case at bar makes it clear that the case at bar falls under the Phenizee no reversible error present line, as opposed to the obvious abuse present in Leverett. The court properly condemned the conduct of the district attorney in seeking to force a committal from the jury, but when we consider that conduct, in context with the jury instructions given to the jury by the trial judge, it is clear that the jury was aware of their proper role in determining guilt and sentence, and, that being true in this case, there is no merit to this assignment of error.