Opinion ID: 1778765
Heading Depth: 1
Heading Rank: 26

Heading: jurors predisposed against willie manning should have been excused for cause.

Text: ś 140. Manning asserts that the trial judge erred by refusing to excuse potential jurors, Ramona Stevens and Patsy Lee. Ramona Stevens was challenged by the defense because she stated in voir dire that her father was in law enforcement, that she would probably be inclined to give more weight to something a law enforcement officer said, and that she probably could not be totally fair and impartial. The challenge for cause was denied by the judge. Patsy Lee was challenged because she saw a story about the case in the news. However, she said that she could disregard it. The challenge for cause was denied by the judge. ś 141. This claim for error is meritless. These two individuals did not serve on the jury, and both were peremptorily struck by the defense. Stevens was the defense's seventh peremptory strike and Lee was the ninth. ś 142. A prerequisite to an assertion of error in the denial of a challenge for cause is a showing by the defendant that he had exhausted all of his peremptory challenges and that the incompetent jurors were forced to sit on the jury by the trial court's erroneous ruling. See Russell v. State, 670 So.2d 816, 826 (Miss.1995). This is a showing that Manning cannot make, and as such he may not assert this error. Further, he may not complain that he was forced to peremptorily strike jurors that should have been stricken for cause. The loss of a peremptory challenge, however, does not constitute a violation of the constitutional right to an impartial jury. So long as the jury that sits is impartial, the fact that the defendant had to use a peremptory challenge to achieve that result does not mean that the defendant was denied his constitutional rights. Mettetal v. State, 615 So.2d 600, 603 (Miss.1993)(citing Ross v. Oklahoma, 487 U.S. 81, 88, 108 S.Ct. 2273, 101 L.Ed.2d 80 (1988)). ś 143. We find no reversible error in this assignment of error.