Opinion ID: 423527
Heading Depth: 2
Heading Rank: 2

Heading: Juror Wells.

Text: 31 The first prospective juror excused for cause who has merited the defendant's attention in these habeas proceedings was the Reverend Charles D. Wells. While Wells was able to imagine a case where a juror would vote to impose the death penalty, he was unable to see himself doing it, and on further questioning stated that he would automatically vote against the death penalty: 32 Q. Mr. Wells, I'm Mike Hinton, as the Court told you awhile ago for the State, and this is my co-counsel, Mr. Vic Driscoll. We come here representing the State of Texas in this case in which we are seeking as the punishment for this defendant the penalty of death. 33 Let me begin then by asking you whether or not you have any conscientious, moral or religious scruples against the imposition of the penalty of death in the electric chair? 34 A. Let me say that morally, I do, and I don't think that I am capable of issuing a penalty of death to any man. 35 Q. All right. Again, as Judge Price told you a moment ago, no one is here to quarrel with your feelings and you certainly are entitled to your opinions as all of us are in our good country, and that includes your feelings about the death penalty. But under the law I must ask you this further additional question, Reverend, which is, I take it from your answer that you cannot imagine a case of murder where you could, as one of twelve jurors, vote to send someone to the electric chair as a punishment for their offense even though it was authorized by statute? 36 A. Would you repeat yourself now, please? 37 Q. Yes, sir. My question that I must ask you then, based upon your former answer is, I take it that because of the feelings that you do have that you are entitled to have, moral feelings, religious feelings, that you cannot imagine a case where you, sitting on a jury, could vote to send someone to death in the electric chair as a punishment for their crime even though the law authorizes such penalty? 38 A. I can imagine it, but I can't see myself doing it. 39 Q. All right. Then, I believe we must [be] somewhere between our hypothetical case where you can imagine a jury doing it?A. Yes. 40 Q. But you can't imagine yourself doing it as one of those jurors, is that correct, sir? 41 A. I can hardly see myself doing it, yes. 42 Q. All right. Now, I don't want you to get angry with me and I'm not trying to argue with you, but I have to ask you for your answer, because this lady is taking down your testimony at this time for the record. 43 I take it then from your answer that because of your religious and moral principles and feelings that you are certainly entitled to have, you cannot imagine a case where you would vote for the imposition of death in the electric chair. Is that correct, sir? 44 A. No, I can't. 45 MR. HINTON: I thank you, sir. We submit that the juror is not qualified, Your Honor. EXAMINATION BY THE COURT 46 Q. Mr. Wells, let me ask you a question before they have the right to ask you questions. 47 Because of your moral or religious scruples, would you, if you were a member of the jury, would you automatically vote against the imposition of capital punishment no matter what the trial revealed? 48 A. As far as the electric chair is concerned? 49 Q. Would you personally, if you were a member of a jury, would you automatically vote against the imposition of the death penalty no matter what the trial revealed? 50 A. Yes, I would. 51 Q. All right. 52 A. I would vote against it. 53 2 Trial Transcript at 763-66. 54 In Texas, however, a juror does not technically vote to impose the death penalty. Instead, the trial judge sentences the defendant to die if, and only if, the jury answers two, sometimes three, statutory questions in the affirmative. Following the examination by counsel for the State and by the court set forth above, counsel for the defendant directed Wells' attention to those two questions: 55 Q. All right. You understand of course, nobody would ask you personally to put somebody to death. You understand that. You personally do not have to pull the switch or something? 56 A. I understand that. 57 Q. Surely. And of course there's a lot of steps to go to between the time you start trial and the time you end the testimony and the defense puts on their testimony and of course, there's a finding of guilt. You understand that. You do now if you haven't before. Is that correct? 58 A. Yes. 59 Q. All right. And then, after a finding of guilt, if there is one, certain questions will be submitted to you as a juror. Now, are you saying at this time that under no circumstances, regardless of what the testimony would be, under no circumstances could you vote for the death penalty? 60 A. I don't think there are any that I possibly could vote for the death penalty. 61 Q. All right. Let me ask you this, sir, if you were selected as a juror, even though the State has asked for the death penalty, could you consider these two issues--and I'll ask you the issues that you would perhaps be asked to consider. All right? 62 A. All right. 63 Q. All right. The first issue would be whether the conduct of the defendant that caused the death of the deceased was committed deliberately and with the reasonable expectation that the death of the deceased or another would result. Could you answer that question, sir, after you had gotten all the facts? 64 A. Yes, Yes. 65 Q. You could answer that all right? 66 A. Yes. 67 Q. And that wouldn't have any trouble with your conscience, would it? 68 A. No. 69 Q. Then of course there would be another question, and that would be whether there is [a] probability that the defendant would commit criminal acts of violence that would constitute a continuing threat to society. Now, could you possibly answer that question? 70 A. Yes, I possibly could answer that question. 71 Q. And would you have any quarrel or any problem with those questions? 72 A. I don't think so. 73 Q. All right. And if you answered those questions, of course, it wouldn't be up to you to do anything to this defendant. Those are merely questions that you answer to the Court. Isn't that correct? 74 A. I would say yes. 75 Q. Could you do that, sir? 76 A. I could be as liberal in answering the questions as I could. 77 Q. And you would answer those questions truthfully, would you not? 78 A. Yes, as far as my opinions are concerned. 79 Q. I know you're a minister, are you not? 80 A. Yes, sir. That's correct. 81 Q. And you could answer those questions to the best of your ability and truthfully, could you not? 82 A. Yes. 83 2 Trial Transcript at 768-70. In spite of Wells' assurance that he could and would answer the statutory questions, the trial court granted the State's request that Wells be excused for cause. Significantly, at no time did defense counsel explain to Wells that if he and the other jurors answered the statutory questions in the affirmative, the trial judge would be required to sentence the defendant to death, and our review of the record indicates that at no point in the proceedings before the voir dire of Wells did the court or counsel render any such explanation. We thus do not know whether, in saying that he could and would answer the two statutory questions truthfully, Wells understood what the effect of those answers could be. 84 The Texas Court of Criminal Appeals was recently presented with a Witherspoon challenge involving a prospective juror whose views were in some respects strikingly similar to those of Wells. In Cuevas v. State, 641 S.W.2d 558 (Tex.Crim.App.1982) (en banc), venireman Ward initially stated, in the words of the court of criminal appeals, that under no circumstances could he participate as a juror in returning a verdict that would require the court to assess the death penalty. Id. at 560. After the bifurcated system in Texas for assessing guilt and punishment in capital murder cases had been carefully explained to him, however, and after he had been informed that the court, not the jury, would impose the penalty, Ward told the trial court that he could set aside his objections to capital punishment and answer the statutory questions on the basis of the evidence presented. Id. 4 While the court of criminal appeals relied on Adams, rather than Witherspoon, in setting aside Cuevas' death sentence, 5 the court was convinced that Ward could not have been excluded consistently with Witherspoon either, because [h]e repeatedly stated that he could follow the law and convict upon proper evidence of guilt beyond a reasonable doubt, despite his opposition to the death penalty. 641 S.W.2d at 563. 85 Cuevas sharpens the ultimate question presented by Wells' exclusion. Just as a juror may be able to put aside his or her opposition to the death penalty and obey the law, so may he or she decide that he or she can determine the facts, i.e., answer the questions, as long as he or she is not the one who must actually pronounce the fatal words. 6 If this is the juror's conclusion, then he or she cannot be excluded under Witherspoon. Ward in Cuevas was just such a juror, and the Texas Court of Criminal Appeals held that his exclusion was error. 86 The threshold question presented by Wells' voir dire is whether Wells had the same views as had Ward. The record indicates that he may have held those views. He stated that he could and would answer the statutory questions truthfully. But in view of the fact that the record does not contain an explanation to Wells of the effect of yes answers to those questions by the jury, we do not know from the record whether Wells, like Ward, could put aside his opposition to the death penalty and obey the law, i.e., answer the statutory questions truthfully, knowing the possible effect of his answers to those questions. We can only speculate. If the requirement of Witherspoon and its progeny--that a venireman must make unmistakably clear his or her inability to follow the law and abide by his or her oath, Adams, supra, 448 U.S. at 48, 100 S.Ct. at 2528; accord Boulden, supra, 394 U.S. at 483-84, 89 S.Ct. at 1141-42--means that an appellate or federal habeas court that cannot be certain from the face of the record about a venireman's inability to follow the law must, without any further consideration, grant the writ, then we would be compelled to do so here. 87 The State argues that we should not apply such a rule in the circumstances of this case. It maintains that it clearly established Wells' automatic opposition to the death penalty during its initial examination of him. Having done so, the State argues that if the petitioner wished to rehabilitate Wells as a juror successfully, it was incumbent upon defense counsel to take his inquiry into Wells' ability to answer the statutory questions one step further by clarifying, on the record, whether Wells understood the possible effect of his answers to those questions. The State argues that, since the defense failed to take that step, the exclusion of Wells on the basis of his initial unequivocal statements of automatic opposition to the death penalty was proper. We agree with the State. 88 A fair reading of Wells' testimony in response to the initial questioning by the State and by the trial court indicates that Wells stated clearly, forcefully and without any equivocation that he would automatically vote against the imposition of the death penalty no matter what the trial revealed. Had the voir dire ended with the court's questioning, the State would clearly have properly obtained the exclusion of Wells under Witherspoon. If the defense wished to rehabilitate Wells by demonstrating that he could obey the law regardless of his opposition to the death penalty, perhaps because of the distinction between the jury as the fact-finder and the judge as the sentencer that Ward found persuasive in Cuevas, then it was incumbent upon the defense to establish, on the record, Wells' ability to engage in that fact-finding function with knowledge of the possible effect of those findings on the defendant's fate. This the defense failed to do. Accordingly, we hold that the exclusion of Wells on the basis of his initial clear and unequivocal statements that he would automatically vote against the death penalty no matter what the trial revealed was proper under Witherspoon and its progeny. 89 This holding is not inconsistent with Burns, supra, in which we held that the exclusion of juror Doss was improper because we were forced to speculate about whether she could put aside her disbelief in the death penalty and follow the law. 592 F.2d at 1301. In Burns, Doss affirmed that she did not believe in the death penalty three times and stated that the mandatory penalty of death or life imprisonment would 'affect' her 'deliberations on any issue of fact in the case.'  Id. The trial court excluded Doss solely on the basis of those statements, and it rejected defense counsel's suggestion that Doss be asked further questions because it could not imagine what else could have been asked. Unfortunately, we could: 90 She could have been asked whether, despite her expressed convictions, she could put her disbelief aside and do her duty as a citizen. Her answer might have been that she could. Or she could have been asked what effect the presence of a possible death sentence would have on her deliberations. Her answer might have been that she would wish to be very sure of guilt, to be thoroughly convinced, before she could find facts in such a way that the death penalty might result. Either answer would doubtless have rehabilitated her for jury service. An answer that she would not take or could not comply with the required oath not to be affected in her deliberations would doubtless, upon a proper definition of affected as meaning disablingly or insurmountably affected, have clearly disqualified her. 91 Id. (emphasis in original). We went on to explain that the speculations caused by the inadequacy of Doss' responses to the questions initially posed to her, in combination with the trial court's failure to permit additional questioning by the defense, required us to hold that her exclusion was improper under Witherspoon: 92 To be sure, these are mere speculations about what her answers to such [additional] questions might have been. The point is that nothing in her actual answers forecloses them. Her mere acknowledgment that the penalty would affect her deliberations does not do so: what candid and responsible citizen would not admit as much, could truthfully swear the proposition to be one of no concern whatever? 93 Id. 94 In contrast to the voir dire in Burns, neither the State nor the trial court has left us to speculate about the nature of Wells' opposition to the death penalty. The prosecutor did not settle for Wells' statement that he did not think that he was capable of issuing the penalty of death to any man, or that he could imagine but could not see himself voting to send someone to death. 2 Trial Transcript at 764-65. The prosecutor did not sit down until Wells had stated unequivocally that he could not imagine a case where he would vote for the imposition of death. Id. at 765. After the prosecutor had finished his questioning, the court took up the task and asked whether Wells would automatically vote against the death penalty no matter what the trial revealed, to which Wells replied that he would. Id. at 766. If we are forced to speculate in this case, it is defense counsel, not the State or the trial judge, who failed to ask the necessary question. 95 We have here the converse of the situation in Burns. Nothing in Wells' answers to defense counsel's questions forecloses the possibility that he would not have answered the statutory questions on the basis of the evidence if he knew that an affirmative answer to both questions would mandate the defendant's execution. The State established Wells' unequivocal opposition to the death penalty beyond speculation; it was then incumbent upon the defendant, if he wished to rehabilitate the juror, to ask enough questions to demonstrate that Wells could perform his fact-finding function in spite of his opposition to the death penalty. 7 96 We were recently confronted with a similar failure by defense counsel to rehabilitate a juror who had expressed her opposition to the death penalty in Porter v. Estelle, 709 F.2d 944 (5th Cir.1983). In Porter, in response to the State's questions, prospective juror Herndon had repeatedly expressed longstanding convictions against the death penalty that would [have] require[d] her to vote against [it] no matter what the trial revealed. 709 F.2d at 948. She maintained her opposition in response to two questions from defense counsel but when asked whether she could put her convictions aside and do her duty 'as a Juror in a Capital Murder case,'  she replied that she could. Id. (emphasis in original). When defense counsel objected to the State's challenge for cause, the State pointed out that the general question asked about Herndon's ability to do her duty as a juror had not included the second predicate question in Burns .... [that] if it meant sentencing a man to death, could you follow that duty?'  Id. Defense counsel did not ask any more questions and the juror was excused for cause. We held in Porter that 97 [i]n view of Herndon's repeated, firm, and unequivocal statements of irrevocable [opposition to the] imposition of the death penalty under any circumstances, we are unable to say her limited reply that she could do her duty as a juror  indicated any vacillation or equivocation in her previous statement of unalterable opposition to imposition of the death penalty. 98 709 F.2d at 948-49 (emphasis in original). Like the defense counsel in Porter, defense counsel here did not ask enough questions to demonstrate that Wells' previously expressed unequivocal opposition to the death penalty would not prevent him from performing his function as a juror in a capital case. 99