Opinion ID: 1522122
Heading Depth: 2
Heading Rank: 1

Heading: Struck Jury

Text: Defendant moved before trial for implementation of the so-called Arizona or struck jury system. The trial court had determined to empanel eighteen jurors and to leave until the conclusion of the case the selection of the twelve who would ultimately deliberate. Under the form of struck jury system proposed by defendant, it would have been necessary to death-qualify a total of sixty prospective jurors before any peremptory challenges could be asserted  the eighteen to be sworn, plus twenty-six to account for the number of peremptory challenges allowed defendant, plus sixteen to accommodate the State's peremptories. [52] The trial court rejected defendant's proposal for a struck jury system, but recognized that if the parties were required to exercise their peremptory challenges after each juror was qualified, neither counsel [would] have any good idea as to the composition of ... eighteen members that [would] ultimately be selected. The court therefore qualified eighteen jurors before the parties were called on to exercise peremptories; as each peremptory was exercised, a new panel member was examined on voir dire until a replacement juror was qualified, at which point the other party was permitted to challenge peremptorily. The process continued in that fashion until a jury of eighteen, satisfactory to both sides, was obtained. As it turned out, neither the State nor the defense exhausted its allotted number of peremptory challenges. Defendant acknowledges that the method of jury selection is a matter reposed in the sound discretion of the trial court, but he contends that the denial of his motion for a struck jury amounted to an abuse of that discretion, warranting a new trial before a jury chosen in accordance with his proposal. The struck jury system, says defendant, is the best suited for insuring that capital defendants receive a fair and impartial trial. To the extent that defendant claims a constitutional right to a struck jury, the claim is without merit. The right to peremptory challenges springs not from any constitutional basis but rather from statutory provisions designed to insure an impartial jury. State v. Singletary, supra, 80 N.J. at 62; see N.J.S.A. 2A:78-7(c). States may fix reasonable limitations on peremptory challenge procedures, so long as the right of challenge is not taken away and reasonable opportunity is given to challenge. Veach v. McDowell, 133 Ind. App. 628, 184 N.E. 2d 149, 151 (1962). Thus, the manner in which the peremptory challenges are exercised, if not directed by statute, is within the discretion of the court, limited by defendant's right to a fair and impartial jury. St. Clair v. United States, 154 U.S. 134, 148, 14 S.Ct. 1002, 1008, 38 L.Ed. 936, 941 (1894); United States v. Turner, 558 F. 2d 535, 538 (9th Cir.1977); State v. Brunson, 101 N.J. 132, 140 (1985); cf. Batson v. Kentucky, supra, ___ U.S. ___, 106 S.Ct. 1712, 90 L.Ed. 2d 69; State v. Gilmore, supra, 103 N.J. 508. In Foraker v. State, 394 A. 2d 208 (Del. 1978), the Delaware Supreme Court upheld the constitutionality of a rule requiring the exercise of peremptory challenges in capital cases immediately after examination of individual jurors and not after the entire jury has been impaneled. We find no constitutional defect in this procedure as it rationally requires the defendant and the State to focus upon possible prejudices of the individual jurors, as opposed to allowing evaluation of the composition of the jury as an entire body. In the context of a murder trial, such a procedure is legitimate. [ Id. at 215 (citation omitted).] See St. Clair v. United States, supra, 154 U.S. at 147-48, 44 S.Ct. at 1007-08, 38 L.Ed. at 941-42 (defendant in capital case does not have right to examine all jury members for cause before exercising peremptory challenges). Defendant's contention that the struck jury system is the only valid method of selecting a capital jury fails not only as a constitutional argument but also as a suggested statement of desirable state policy. We understand the attraction of the struck jury procedure: under it, the parties are confronted with all of the jurors who might hear the case, enabling the parties to make a comparative assessment before exercising a peremptory challenge. See Swain v. Alabama, supra, 380 U.S. at 217-18, 85 S.Ct. at 834, 13 L.Ed. 2d at 771; United States v. Sams, 470 F. 2d 751, 754 (5th Cir.1972). In no case, however, has such a system been mandated. Indeed, in United States v. Blouin, 666 F. 2d 796 (2d Cir.1981), the court held explicitly that the `struck jury system' ... is not required, nor, on balance, even necessarily preferable to the `jury box' system; it is merely different. Id. at 799. Certainly, the struck jury system is not necessarily more fair for defendants; its benefits accrue also to the prosecutor, who will likewise use the opportunity to make a comparative assessment of potential jurors. Moreover, the struck jury system poses certain obvious problems, notably, in our view, in its requirement that a larger group of jurors must be questioned and qualified. 3 ABA Standards for Criminal Justice Standard 15-2.6, commentary at 15.70 (2d ed. 1980). In capital cases, the process is particularly lengthy because individual voir dire may be required under Rule 1:8-3(a) and (d) for many potential jurors, here sixty. Often neither party will use all of the allotted peremptory challenges, in which case jurors will have been questioned unnecessarily. The concerns over judicial economy raised by the proposed system were addressed by this Court in an analogous context in State v. Rios, 17 N.J. 572 (1955). In Rios, also a capital case, the trial court denied defendant's application to exercise a peremptory challenge after the juror had been found acceptable to defense counsel and had been sworn. In rejecting defendant's contention that the denial constituted error, Justice Wachenfeld, writing for a unanimous Court, observed: Were we to sanction peremptory challenges after the swearing of the jurors, it would soon become standard practice for counsel to withhold their peremptory challenges until a full panel had been sworn, doubtlessly hoping thereby to gain the advantage of an observation made after the entire panel had been seated. Such a procedure would lead to but further and needless delay in the selection of a jury and would not serve to advance the ends of justice. [ Id. at 594.] This is not to say that we disapprove the use of a struck jury system per se; it is to say, however, that trial courts do not err in seeking to balance the exigencies of the judicial system with the interests of the parties in exercising informed peremptory challenges. We thus cannot say that the trial court's analysis here was erroneous. In essence, defendant's argument confuses his right to an impartial jury with his interest in acquittal. Defendant is not entitled, however, to a jury he considers most favorably disposed to him; he is entitled to an impartial jury. The right of challenge is one of exclusion, not selection. E.g., State v. Marchese, 14 N.J. 16, 21 (1953). Here, defendant has made no showing that the system used produced anything other than an impartial jury. The method of jury selection provided defendant a fair and reasonable opportunity to exercise his peremptory challenges to exclude any juror defendant believed would not be impartial. We therefore hold that defendant was not entitled to the qualification of sixty jurors prior to the exercise of his peremptory challenges. The struck jury issue in future cases is left to the sound discretion of the trial courts.