Opinion ID: 1657445
Heading Depth: 1
Heading Rank: 3

Heading: errors in jury selection

Text: There were three. 1) The first error was in calling a supplemental panel of jurors and merging them with the regular panel, unknown to defense counsel before the day of trial. This caused the defense to be unable in advance of trial to review the information on the jury qualification forms which are required by KRS 29A.070 and which must be made available to parties or their attorneys of record pursuant to subsection (7) of that statute. The opportunity to study the background of prospective jurors was vitally important in a high profile case of this nature. The procedure used violated RCr 9.30(1)(c), which states: When it appears that the names in the jury box are about to become exhausted, the judge may obtain additional jurors by drawing from the drum, or, with the consent of the parties, by ordering the sheriff or a bailiff appointed by the court to summon any number of qualified persons. In Rowe v. Commonwealth, Ky., 394 S.W.2d 751 (1965) and Bolen v. Commonwealth, Ky., 252 S.W.2d 423 (1952), we acknowledged that proper method for drawing additional jurors is only after the regular panel has been exhausted. The trial judge's position in this matter was that the jury panel had been supplemented sometime previously, and the new jurors added to the panel should be treated as part of the regular panel. But the facts are that the defense counsel, who had obtained the regular jury list and checked out their background material, had no opportunity to do so with these supplemental jurors. The court clerk claimed that the names of the supplemental jurors had been put in counsel's box at the courthouse, but this was unsubstantiated, and defense counsel stated, categorically, he had no supplemental jury list, or jury qualification information pertaining thereto, until after voir dire was underway and these slips were then furnished to him during trial. He asked for a continuance, but was given only five to fifteen minutes to try to evaluate this information. In short, he appears to have been sandbagged. The violation of the procedural rule for using supplemental jurors was not just technical, but substantial. 2) The trial court took upon itself to automatically excuse two educators, school principals, from jury service, when neither claimed a statutory disqualification or substantial reason for being excused. One, who was excused during the jury selection process, stated there was no reason he could not serve. Excusing educators in these circumstances was reversible error. 3) Most importantly, defense counsel moved that all persons from the nearby Fruit of the Loom plant where Joe Biggerstaff and Donna Janes had worked (and Donna Janes still worked), who were acquaintances should be excluded for cause, but the trial court refused to exclude those who it viewed as only casual acquaintances, defined as persons who knew the victim or the principal prosecuting witness by name, and on a hi and goodbye, and occasional joke basis. It is true these friends and acquaintances answered affirmatively the magic question as to whether they could put aside their friendship and be impartial, but these jurors should have been excluded on grounds of implied bias regardless of their affirmative answers to the magic question. As we stated in Montgomery v. Commonwealth, Ky., 819 S.W.2d 713 (1991): [T]he `magic question' does not provide a device to `rehabilitate' a juror who should be considered disqualified by his personal knowledge or his past experience, or his attitude as expressed on voir dire. We declare the concept of `rehabilitation' is a misnomer in the context of choosing qualified jurors and direct trial judges to remove it from their thinking and strike it from their lexicon. Id. at 718. Our level of sensitivity to the constitutional guarantee of a neutral jury should not rise and fall like a barometer. There is no excuse for seating a jury of friends and acquaintances of one side or the other, albeit the court views the friendship as casual. The cold fact is that after this trial Donna Janes would be returning to the Fruit of the Loom plant where these jurors, whom the trial court would not excuse for cause, would have to face her on a daily basis. Jurors who knew the victim and the prosecuting witness, and in particular the prosecuting witness who is still their co-employee, can hardly be regarded as neutral jurors. There were eight persons in this category on the petit jury panel. Four were excused by peremptory challenges by the defense which exhausted peremptory challenges by doing so, but four served on the jury. One was later excused as an alternate, and three were still on the jury that convicted the appellant. It is the probability of bias or prejudice that is determinative in ruling on a challenge for cause. Pennington v. Commonwealth, Ky., 316 S.W.2d 221, 224 (1958). The Majority concludes Copley had a fundamentally fair trial. While I can appreciate a certain lack of sympathy for a person who engaged in a shootout in a shopping center parking lot, I am at a loss to understand the legal basis for concluding Copley received a fundamentally fair trial. This case should be reversed and remanded for a new trial, respecting Copley's right to be tried according to law. COMBS, J., joins this dissent. LAMBERT, J., joins as to Point I.