Opinion ID: 1202533
Heading Depth: 1
Heading Rank: 4

Heading: constitutionality of allowing ten peremptory challenges

Text: Defendant's third point is that the lower court erred by not declaring rule 18(d) of the Utah Rules of Criminal Procedure unconstitutional. That provision allows the prosecution and the defense ten peremptory challenges each in capital felony cases. The contention is that allowing the prosecution to exercise ten peremptory challenges against a death-qualified jury in a pro-death-penalty state results in a conviction-prone and death-prone jury in violation of a defendant's constitutional rights. Defendant's tri-part argument rests upon, first, the death qualification of the panel; second, a survey of registered voters from Salt Lake County which, defendant claims, demonstrates pro-death-penalty attitudes on the part of Utahns; and third, the ten peremptories allowed by rule 18(d). It is the effect of these three components' operating upon one another that defendant claims causes rule 18(d) to be infirm. The sixth amendment to the United States Constitution guarantees an accused a trial by an impartial jury. [23] Selection of petit juries from a representative cross-section of the community is an essential component of this guarantee. [24] Death qualification of a jury involves the identification and removal for cause of those panel members whose views on capital punishment prevent or substantially impair the performance of their duties in accordance with the jurors' oath and the court's instructions. [25] And under Utah law, those panel members who would always vote for the death penalty upon conviction of first degree murder are also excludable. [26] Defendant relies on footnote 18 in Witherspoon v. Illinois, [27] which indicates that a defendant might establish that a death-qualified jury was less than neutral with respect to guilt. [28] However, this argument has been laid to rest. In Lockhart v. McCree, [29] the defendant had been convicted of capital felony murder and was sentenced to life without possibility of parole. Prior to the guilt phase of the defendant's bifurcated trial, the judge removed for cause those prospective jurors who stated that they could not under any circumstances vote for imposition of the death penalty. [30] The defendant subsequently filed a habeas corpus petition, claiming inter alia that removal of the jurors violated his sixth and fourteenth amendment rights to have his guilt or innocence determined by an impartial jury selected from a representative cross-section of the community. In Lockhart, the United States Supreme Court reversed an Eighth Circuit opinion upholding the district court's decision that had granted the defendant's petition. The Supreme Court held that the United States Constitution does not prohibit the removal for cause, prior to the guilt phase of a bifurcated capital trial, of prospective jurors whose opposition to the death penalty is so strong that it would prevent or substantially impair the performance of their duties as jurors at the sentencing phase of trial. [31] The decision dealt with both the fair cross-section and impartiality guarantees of the sixth and fourteenth amendments. [32] This Court has previously considered the point and came to the same conclusion in State v. Lafferty , [33] State v. Moore, [34] and State v. Schreuder. [35] Defendant claims, however, that the death-qualification process allowed identification by the prosecution of neutral or death penalty scrupled panel members who were then excluded with peremptory challenges by the prosecution. In Lockhart, the United States Supreme Court said: We would in any event reject the argument that the very process of questioning prospective jurors at voir dire about their views of the death penalty violates the Constitution. McCree concedes that the State may challenge for cause prospective jurors whose opposition to the death penalty is so strong that it would prevent them from impartially determining a capital defendant's guilt or innocence. Ipso facto, the State must be given the opportunity to identify such prospective jurors by questioning them at voir dire about their views of the death penalty. [36] We therefore conclude that the first aspect of defendant's argument fails and that this failure wholly undermines his attack on rule 18(d). Yet, even assuming arguendo that the first aspect of defendant's argument had some merit, his point on appeal still must fail. Defendant relies on Batson v. Kentucky [37] in support of his claim that the State's exercise of its peremptory challenges is reviewable on appeal. He contends that the prosecution should not be allowed to use peremptory challenges to remove all individuals who entertain scruples against imposition of the death penalty, and amidst much ambiguity, he appears to claim that this violates the fair-cross-section component of the sixth amendment. However, Batson expressly declined to address the fair-cross-section challenge to the discriminatory use of peremptory challenges. [38] And in Lockhart, the Court noted that it had never invoked the fair-cross-section principle to invalidate the use of either for-cause or peremptory challenges to prospective jurors or to require petit juries, as opposed to jury panels or venires, to reflect the composition of the community at large. [39] That Court concluded that an extension of the fair-cross-section requirement to petit juries would be unworkable and unsound. [40] The Court, instead of stopping there, held, assuming arguendo that such a constitutional requirement did exist, that groups defined solely in terms of shared attitudes that would prevent or substantially impair members of the group from performing one of their duties as jurors, such as the `Witherspoon -excludables' ... are not `distinctive groups' for fair cross section purposes. [41] Finally, the survey relied on by defendant is not particularly persuasive and is far from the type of evidence this Court needs before striking legislative enactments. [42]