Opinion ID: 2003518
Heading Depth: 3
Heading Rank: 3

Heading: Jury Exposure to Pretrial Publicity

Text: Defendant contends his right to a fair trial was compromised because certain members of the jury were exposed to pretrial publicity about the case. Specifically, defendant contends that several jurors were aware that he had already been convicted in other jurisdictions of offenses occurring during the alleged crime spree following the Vernita Wheat murder. At the outset, we note that defendant, acting pro se, accepted each of the jurors in question. The failure to challenge a juror for cause or by peremptory challenge waives any objection to that juror. ( People v. Collins (1985), 106 Ill.2d 237, 271, 87 Ill. Dec. 910, 478 N.E.2d 267.) Considerations of waiver aside, defendant's argument is meritless. A juror's exposure to publicity about a case is not enough to demonstrate prejudice; jurors need not be totally ignorant of the facts and issues involved. ( People v. Sutherland (1992), 155 Ill.2d 1, 15, 182 Ill.Dec. 577, 610 N.E.2d 1.) What is essential is the juror's ability to lay aside impressions or opinions and return a verdict based upon the evidence presented in court. Sutherland, 155 Ill.2d at 16, 182 Ill.Dec. 577, 610 N.E.2d 1. In order to minimize the impact of pretrial publicity, the jury was selected from a pool composed of residents of Rock Island County, rather than Lake County, where the offense occurred. While defendant contends that five jurors were aware of his convictions in other jurisdictions, review of the record reveals that only two of the jurors identified by defendant had such knowledge. Those jurors had only minimal knowledge of the defendant's other offenses and were apparently unfamiliar with the details of those offenses. Both of the jurors indicated that they believed they could disregard defendant's prior convictions and decide the issues based solely on the evidence. A juror's knowledge of the accused's prior convictions for other offenses does not create a presumption of prejudice. ( Murphy v. Florida (1975), 421 U.S. 794, 95 S.Ct. 2031, 44 L.Ed.2d 589.) Defendant attempts to distinguish Murphy on the basis that, unlike the case at bar, the prior convictions in Murphy did not arise from the same crime spree as the pending charges. We do not find the distinction to be persuasive. Whatever the content of the pretrial publicity, from a constitutional standpoint the ultimate question remains whether the juror is to be believed when he says he has not formed an opinion about the case. ( Mu'Min v. Virginia (1991), 500 U.S. 415, 425, 111 S.Ct. 1899, 1905, 114 L.Ed.2d 493, 506 (holding that the accused is not constitutionally entitled to inquire as to the content of pretrial publicity to which prospective jurors have been exposed).) The jurors in question offered their assurances of impartiality, and defendant points to nothing casting suspicion on those assurances. We note parenthetically that inflammatory pretrial publicity may sometimes rise to a level creating such a presumption of prejudice in a community that the jurors' claims that they can be impartial should not be believed. ( Patton v. Yount (1984), 467 U.S. 1025, 1031, 104 S.Ct. 2885, 2889, 81 L.Ed.2d 847, 854, citing Irvin v. Dowd (1961), 366 U.S. 717, 81 S.Ct. 1639, 6 L.Ed.2d 751.) However, the jury in this case was selected in Rock Island County, not Lake County, where the offense occurred. Nothing indicates that pretrial publicity generated a sense of community outrage in Rock Island County. Defendant also contends that some jurors may have been aware that defendant had previously been sentenced to death in other jurisdictions, thus diminishing the jurors' sense of responsibility for imposing the death penalty in the case at bar. The record provides no support for defendant's contention that any members of the jury were aware he had previously been sentenced to death.